The Democrats have made their anti-gun agenda explicitly clear. In Virginia, one of the first things the Democrat-controlled state legislature did was enact more gun-control legislation in the form of an "assault weapons" ban. The state is also facing accusations that the Virginia State Police are deliberately delaying background checks to thwart gun rights.
But Virginia is not a vacuum, and wherever Democrats gain power, they seek to curtail the Second Amendment rights of law-abiding citizens, and the blunt truth is Democrats will never stop until they get a full repeal of the Second Amendment.
In Florida, the Democrats' top choice for governor, David Jolly, is precisely the kind of anti-gun, anti-Second Amendment activist Democrats would love to put in office. Jolly, who served Florida's 13th congressional district from 2014 to 2017, was a Republican then; he switched parties in April 2025.
Throughout his time in Congress and later as a contributor to MSNBC (now known as MS NOW), Jolly has made his anti-gun agenda clear, calling himself an "aggressive" advocate for gun control.
Jolly says his shift on gun rights is the result of the Pulse nightclub shooting, claiming after the 2016 attack that other Republicans "went home and hid" while Jolly joined the Democrats' House sit-in calling for more gun control. "Look," Jolly said in 2019, "notionally I gathered with the Democrats when they had the House sit-in after Pulse, begging for some sort of bipartisanship in a moment of national crisis and our leaders couldn't be found. They went home and hid. And this is getting easier for me to say these days: beat Republicans because of this issue; they won't do anything."
In November of last year, Jolly held an interview with Fox 35 in Orlando, telling the station, "On the issue of guns, I went in with a fairly traditional Republican view in Congress, and after the Pulse nightclub shooting, and after school shootings, we've got to do something differently. Now I'm an aggressive advocate for gun violence prevention legislation. Yeah, I've changed, I think that's a good thing."
What would that "aggressive" gun control look like?
Well, Jolly is in support of "common sense" measures, including banning assault weapons, universal comprehensive background checks, an expansion of so-called "red flag" laws, and mandating liability insurance for gun owners.
After the tragic events of this weekend, it’s clear: we need to have a serious conversation about gun violence. Our country suffers needlessly and there are commonsense steps we can take: ban the sale of assault weapons, require universal and comprehensive background checks,…
— David Jolly (@davidjollyfl) December 15, 2025
In New Jersey, lawmakers have already tried to mandate liability insurance for gun owners, requiring a $300,000 policy, and the San Jose City Commission mandated liability insurance that would cover "any damages" created by a shooting. Both of those mandates are tied up in the courts.
"I do know we're not doing enough, and everything should be on the table," Jolly said.
Of course, the purpose of mandating liability insurance is to price out lower-income gun owners from being able to exercise their Second Amendment rights.
Jolly wants every gun transaction covered by background checks, including ownership transfers between family members. "It should be universal," he said. "Every transaction, father to son, grandfather to grandchild, I'm actually for broader background checks than most Democrats." In addition to universal background checks, Jolly introduced H.R. 5544, the Terrorist Screening Database Improvement Act, co-sponsored by Democrat Alan Grayson, which would prohibit anyone on the federal National Terror Screening Database from purchasing a firearm. Jolly was still a Republican then, and while Democrats supported his bill, they did not want to pass legislation drafted by a Republican.
There's one major flaw with Jolly's logic, of course. The Pulse nightclub shooter, Omar Mateen, legally obtained the weapons he used, including passing a background check. Mateen was also a licensed security officer in the state of Florida and held a firearm license, too.
Today, we remember with heartbreak the tragedy of Pulse Nightclub. We grieve together as a state, and we commit to a better Florida where everyone is lifted up and embraced, and free from preventable gun violence.
— David Jolly (@davidjollyfl) June 12, 2025
This means that none of the "common sense steps" proposed by Jolly would have stopped the Pulse nightclub shooting. That's often the case with mass shootings; the weapons used are legally obtained by the shooter prior to the crime, and it makes Democrats' gun control promises ring hollow.
Under Governor Ron DeSantis, Florida became a gun-friendly state. In 2023, DeSantis signed a law that eliminated the requirement for a permit to carry a concealed weapon and oversaw the overturning of a 1987 law that barred 18- to 20-year-olds from carrying concealed weapons.
David Jolly’s "common sense steps" aren’t modest reforms. Instead, they’re a calculated assault on the Second Amendment wrapped in soothing rhetoric. An assault weapons ban that targets the most popular rifles in America, universal background checks that criminalize private transfers between family members, red-flag laws ripe for abuse, and liability insurance designed to price law-abiding citizens out of their constitutional rights. These aren’t solutions; they’re the same incremental restrictions Democrats have used in Virginia, New Jersey, California, and every other state they control to slowly strangle the right to keep and bear arms.
Floridians know the truth: the Pulse nightclub shooter passed a background check. He was a licensed security guard. None of Jolly’s flagship proposals would have stopped that monster. Yet Jolly still uses the tragedy to justify disarming everyone else.
Under Governor Ron DeSantis, Florida rejected this path and instead made a clear commitment to treating law-abiding gun owners as citizens, not suspects. That’s why violent crime has stayed in check while other blue cities drown in it.
Come November, Florida faces a clear choice: keep Florida free with proven pro-Second Amendment leadership, or hand the governor’s mansion to David Jolly and watch the same anti-gun playbook that’s failed everywhere else get imported to the Sunshine State.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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