PARKLAND, Fla. – Florida Democratic Rep. Jared Moskowitz, who organized Friday’s congressional tour of the Parkland school shooting site with Republican Rep. Mario Diaz-Balart, led a roundtable discussion after the tour with the families of those killed in the shooting.
“I know it was meaningful for all of the members of Congress who walked through the building today,” Parkland father Max Schachter said.
Schachter’s son Alex, 14, was shot and killed in his Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School classroom.
“I think that they understand the failures that happened,” Schachter said. “Today, as we were walking through that building, we are identifying, members are coming up to me saying, ‘If only we had done this, if only we only had done this.’”
WATCH FULL VIDEO: US lawmakers hold roundtable discussion after touring Parkland school shooting site
After bearing witness to the brutality inside the 1200 building, where the gunman killed 17 staff members and students and wounded another 17, he had a call to action to lawmakers
“Every legislature and every member of Congress should understand what happens when you don’t prioritize school safety,” Schachter said last month.
Moskowitz, who is from Parkland and graduated from MSD, then tapped Diaz-Balart to organize Friday’s visit.
“Parkland was the safest city in the entire state of Florida, based on crime statistics, when this event happened, and it is now home to the largest school shooting in American history,” Moskowitz said.
“If we can’t get together and work together on this, then, you know, what the heck are we doing?” Diaz-Balart said.
The pair brought federal lawmakers into a conversation with Parkland families, co-chairing Friday morning’s historic moment -- a bipartisan congressional delegation tour of the Parkland school shooting site.
Together they walked the 1200 building’s blood-stained hallways and viewed its bullet-riddled classrooms.
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“You are going to see where kids walked into that building and didn’t come out, where adults came to teach that day and didn’t leave,” Moskowitz said before the group entered the 1200 building. “Literally as if it is the day after the shooting.”
Tony Montalto, whose daughter Gina, 14, was killed in the shooting, is hopeful the bipartisan congressional delegation tour will offer the lawmakers perspective and communicate the sense of urgency they feel to improve school safety.
“There is not one thing that will make the change,” he said. “It is changing this and that -- it is working together across the aisle to find the answers that neither side has on their own.”
The Parkland families -- by creating a dialogue with federal lawmakers -- are continuing what has been their life’s work of channeling their anguish into action, telling lawmakers from both parties that school safety is not a partisan issue but is a pressing one.
“The whole point is to continue that conversation,” Moskowitz said. “Yeah, this reinvigorates with emotions and images.”
“While we have huge differences, and that is healthy in a democracy, we debate all sorts of things -- but there are things that are kind of like no brainers,” Diaz-Balart added.