Fant Discusses Stop School Violence Act and Opioid Crisis

In his bid to become Florida's next Attorney General, Jay Fant says that his goal is to make Florida "the best place to live and work.” This is because "Florida is the best place. We have more coastline, we have the recreation, we have the weather. I don’t know how you beat it."

But, two issues have recently hit the forefront of Florida's politics, which are school shootings and the opioid crisis.

Addressing his vote against the Stop School Violence Act, Fant explained that "Ultimately, the moment that bill was proposed, it included a harshly unconstitutional aspect to it, which is the gun ban for a certain segment of adults in Florida. For instance, a 20-year-old single mother literally in Florida could not buy a firearm of any type to defend herself in the state. That’s an equal protection violation."

He added that "I knew on its face, I could never support anything like that because I took an oath to support and defend the constitution. That’s why I ran for office in the first place because of what I saw going on in the Obama administration. As attorney general, I’m the one who looks after people’s constitutional rights. So, that was the ink in the well that poisoned my ability to vote for that bill."

He did mention that there were some good aspects to the bill. For example, the part about giving money to schools, but he argued that it could have been attain "through the budget process."

In terms of the opioid crisis that President Donald Trump has been highlighting along with Florida Governor Rick Scott, Fant was asked the one thing he would do in order to fix the crisis that has taken many lives.

Though he argues that "There’s no one single thing that will solve" the opioid crisis, one thing he would stress "is securing the borders and making sure that, for those who do get hooked on opioids, they don’t walk into a heroin addiction because it’s so cheap and easy to get."

Fant detailed that "Between the pharmaceutical industries and the physicians and the pharmacies and the community coaching and ultimately encouraging parenting to be very mindful of what happens when a child gets hurt playing football or a sport and they take a legal pharmaceutical. It’s too strong and powerful for their bodies to where they get addicted."

Ultimately, he expressed that "The vast majority of those who die from opioid overdoses are isolated individuals. They don’t have family nearby or with them. They’re people who have gotten away from their family or they don’t have friends, and so this is where the community steps in. If you have estranged family, this is the time to understand why family matters."