Frustration over continued mass shootings prompted Palm Beach County Commissioner Shelley Vana Tuesday to take aim at the National Rifle Association and its opposition to Florida gun control measures.

She criticized Florida lawmakers for this year once again failing to roll back an NRA-backed law that stands in the way of Palm Beach County and other local governments imposing local gun control measures.

Vana, a former state legislator, said there are legislators “who would wet themselves” if told the NRA planned to oppose their re-election.

“Everybody is terrified in Tallahassee of the NRA,” Vana said at Tuesday’s County Commission meeting. She contends that is going to take a “critical mass” of people to “say, ‘Enough,’ to the NRA.”

“We have some really big problems,” Vana said.

The Legislature in 2011 passed a law that established $5,000 fines for local officials who try to enforce city and county gun rules. Continuing to defy the state law can also lead to removal from office.

That prompted Palm Beach County and other local governments across the state to do away with local rules that barred guns from parks, beaches and public buildings.

Supporters of the state law maintained that local governments having their own firearms rules created confusion and that the local regulations violated the Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms.

The NRA has argued that doing away with cities’ and counties’ gun rules enables people with state-issued concealed-weapons permits to carry firearms into places where those permitted-weapons already should have been allowed.

But state lawmakers shouldn’t block Palm Beach County and other local communities from trying to making parks and other public places safer from gun violence, Vana said.

“We are just closing our eyes and letting our kids die in horrible ways,” Vana said.

County Mayor Priscilla Taylor agreed with Vana that the NRA has too much political influence with lawmakers.

“Access to guns is a problem and we have too much access to guns,” said Taylor, who like Vana is also a former state legislator.

State Rep. Mark Pafford, D-West Palm Beach, who heads the Palm Beach County legislative delegation, sympathized Tuesday with Vana’s gun control concerns. Pafford said it’s time for the Legislature to “move past the partisan nonsense” and “actually vote for the issues that are most important.”

Second Amendment advocates at Tuesday’s commission meeting countered Vana’s concerns by saying that gun restrictions just makes law-abiding residents more susceptible to armed criminals.

But Vana doesn’t accept the anti-gun-control argument that guns don’t kill people, people kill people.

“People with guns who are nuts kill people,” Vana said.

The recent university shooting in California was just another reminder that politicians across the country aren’t willing to take on the NRA, Vana said.

Florida has fallen short on both gun control as well as funding for mental health facilities needed for people prone to mass killings, Vana said.

“If you won’t address both, you are not going to fix the problem,” Vana said.