Florida’s governor on Friday announced plans to put more armed guards in schools and to make it harder for young adults and some with mental illness to buy guns, responding to days of intense lobbying from survivors of last week’s shooting at a Florida high school.
Florida Governor Rick Scott unveiled his school safety proposals as teachers returned for the first time to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School since the shooting that killed 17 people.
The shooting sparked an intense push to restrict access to assault rifles fueled by student activists who swarmed the state Capitol demanding concrete gun control measures.
US President Donald Trump on Friday repeatedly said that he favored arming teachers to protect students, an idea many educators rejected out of hand.
“I am totally against arming teachers. They have a challenging job as it is,” Broward County Public Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie said.
Scott, a Republican widely expected to run for the US Senate, outlined his plan at a Tallahassee news conference.
In addition to banning firearm sales to anyone younger than 21, the governor called for a trained law enforcement officer for every school — and one for every 1,000 students at larger schools — by the time this year’s fall school year begins.
Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which has more than 3,000 students, had one armed resource officer who never entered the building under attack while a gunman was shooting people inside, officials said.
That failure was compounded by confusion about what was being shown to police on school security cameras the day of the shooting and the lack of meaningful response to reports to the FBI and local police that 19-year-old suspect Nikolas Cruz might become violent, had guns and possibly would attack a school.
Florida House of Representatives Speaker Richard Corcoran called it an “abject breakdown at all levels.”
Cruz has been jailed on 17 counts of murder and has confessed to the shootings, investigators said.
Among other things, Scott’s US$500 million plan would create a “violent threat restraining order” that would let a court prohibit a violent or mentally ill person from purchasing or possessing a firearm or any other weapon under certain circumstances.
The proposal would also strengthen gun purchase and possession restrictions for mentally ill people under the state’s Baker Act, which allows someone to be involuntarily hospitalized for up to 72 hours.
Scott is seeking US$50 million for mental health initiatives that include expanding mental health services by providing counseling, crisis management and other mental health services for youth and young adults.
“No one with mental issues should have access to a gun. It is common sense. It for their own best interest, much less the best interest of our communities,” Scott said.
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