Governor wants to tighten gun laws
TALLAHASSEE: Florida’s governor 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.
Governor Rick Scott unveiled his school safety proposals as teachers returned for the first time to Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School since the shooting nine days ago that killed 17 people.
The shooting sparked an intense push to restrict access to assault rifles fuelled by student activists who swarmed the state Capitol demanding concrete gun control measures.
President Donald Trump repeatedly said on Friday that he favoured arming teachers to protect students, an idea many educators rejected out of hand.
“I am totally against arming teachers,” Broward schools Superintendent Robert Runcie said.
Scott, a Republican widely expected to run for the Senate, outlined his plan at a Tallahassee news conference. In addition to banning firearm sales to anyone under 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 the fall 2018 school year begins.
Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, 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.
Cruz is jailed and facing 17 counts of murder.
Among other things, the governor’s $500 million (about R5.8 billion) 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.
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 hospitalised for up to 72 hours. Scott is seeking $50m for mental health initiatives that include expanding mental health services by providing counselling, crisis management and other mental health services for youth and young adults.
“No one with mental issues should have access to a gun. It’s for their own best interest, much less the best interest of our communities,” Scott said.