Community leaders host town hall on gun violence ahead of permit-less concealed carry law starting up

ORLANDO - At the Town Hall, organizers handed out flyers alerting people that permit-less concealed carry starts up in less than a month.

The speakers are worried laws like that could worsen gun violence.

"The greatest definition of justice has nothing to do with putting people behind bars, and everything to do with ensuring it never happens again," Frost said to the audience at the town hall in Orlando. 

He and a panel of other local leaders answered questions submitted by the audience.

The desire for answers and for change is what drew people in. 

At one point, Frost asked people to come up to the podium and say the names of the loved ones they’d lost to shootings.

Dominic Major was one of those who went to the podium. He lost his niece, 9-year-old T’Yonna Major to gun violence in February.

She was shot in Pine Hills, along with her mother, a news crew, and another woman.

"We want to be in the community, and we want to be a voice for change, so we’ll be here," said Major. "She wanted to do things to help the community, and we want to make sure we honor that."

Others in attendance were there to learn about the bills working through Congress right now.

Frost now has 70 co-sponsors on his bill to create an Office of Gun Violence Prevention with the DOJ. That’s something David Porter, one of the attendees, said he’d support.

"I’m a second amendment person, but I see a lot of room for things that could be tightened up," said Porter. "Permit-less carry I think is a disaster. I think a lot of people are going to get hurt."

Chiquita Wynn, another attendee, told FOX 35 she has grandchildren she’s raising, and she worries about them being in a community frequently rocked by gun violence.

"That’s why we’re here," said Wynn. "To find a solution to keep the kids off the streets."

Frost says he hopes to focus on the question of how to prevent gun violence before it happens.

"All too often in government, we like to talk about reactionary legislation. But when we talk about gun violence, after that happens, the people have already died."

The takeaway from the Town Hall was that there’s no one solution.

Stopping gun violence also means addressing poverty and mental health issues.

"We’ve got to create a community where people don’t use guns to solve their problems in the first place," said Frost.

There’s another town hall coming up June 28th at 6pm at Dr. Phillipps High School in Orlando.

That one will be a general town hall, rather than focusing on a single issue like Thursday’s did.