Florida Voters Heavily Back Assault Weapons Ban, Oppose Armed Teachers

After Parkland massacre survivors roasted Sen. Marco Rubio like a pig in a caja china at CNN's nationally televised town hall, he took to Twitter to complain that their demands for an outright ban on the military-style assault weapons that helped slaughter 17 people at the school were "well outside the mainstream."

Maybe Rubio meant the idea was outside the mainstream of the NRA donors who have spent millions to keep him in office, because new polling out this afternoon makes it clear that Florida voters are very comfortable with completely keeping weapons of war out of civilian hands.

The poll from Quinnipiac University shows that a full 62 percent of Floridians back a ban on assault weapons; only 33 percent are against the idea.

The rest of the poll reads like the worst fevered nightmares of Marion Hammer, the NRA mega-lobbyist who has turned Florida into a gun-packed hellscape over the past two decades.

The poll shows that 96 percent of voters want universal background checks for all gun sales. Ninety-six percent! You couldn't get 96 percent of Floridians to agree that the Atlantic Ocean is real.

The survey goes on: 87 percent want a waiting period on all gun sales; 62 percent want a ban on high-capacity magazines; 78 percent want all gun sales to have a 21-year-old age limit; 89 percent want judges to have the ability to take guns away from people whom police and family members say are violent; and 92 percent want to ban gun ownership for anyone with restraining orders for domestic violence or stalking.

Floridians want gun control. What they do not want, by a 56-40 margin, is armed teachers in their schools, Quinnipiac found.

Remember these results next month when the Florida Legislature passes its post-Parkland "safety" bill that does absolutely nothing to restrict gun sales while spending millions to try to arm teachers.