Faso expects discussions of school safety, gun purchases
U.S. Rep. John Faso expects that improving school safety and restricting how firearms are obtained will be part of congressional discussions for the remainder of the year.
Faso, R-Kinderhook, said background checks and mental health issues, in particular, need to be addressed in any talks regarding guns.
“We want to make some federal dollars available to help school districts harden their facilities, make them more safe for students and staff, and make it more difficult for intruders to come in,” the congressman said. “I’m also spearheading some efforts that we’ll announce [this] week on mental health. It’s also important that we look at all of our laws as they relate to firearms and the background check to make sure that we fix these gaps that exist.”
Faso, a first-term congress-
man who’s up for re-election in November, also cited missed opportunities to prevent the Feb. 14 mass shooting at a Florida high school that killed 17 people.
“Clearly the FBI made a grievous mistake,” he said. “Two very clear warnings, specific warnings, about this individual young man were ignored [and] not reported to the field office; repeated instances where he was violent, where local police were called, and violence that caused him to be expelled from school was never reported and never prosecuted.”
Faso said there have been similar missed signs before other mass shootings in the U.S.
“As we’ve seen around the country, there’s certain people who should never get access to firearms,” he said. “We’ve got to make sure that we’ve got our mental health and our background checks so that we keep people who are dangerous to themselves and to others away from firearms.”
Among the first test of congressional resolve in the issue will be a vote planned for Wednesday on the Stop School Violence Bill of 2018, which updates the Omnibus Crime Control and Safe Streets Act of 1968.
The proposed legislation, which would provide $50 million
in grant funding over a 10-year period, includes changing language that currently states the money would be for the “placement and use of metal detectors and other deterrent measures” to stating it would help school districts conduct “evidence-based training and technical assistance to prevent violence.”
The funding would include “training to prevent student violence against others and self, including training for local law-enforcement officers, school personnel and students.”
The bill also would require “development and operation of anonymous reporting systems for threats of school violence, including mobile telephone applications, hotlines and ... websites.”