State Senate school fix ignores guns

ALBANY — Nearly three weeks after the Parkland, Fla., school shooting, the state Senate Monday passed what it dubbed a school safety package.

But Senate Democrats groused the package does nothing to address the gun scourge.

The GOP plan would require police officers at schools in New York City and provide grants to districts outside the city to hire retired law enforcement personnel as school resource officers.

It also seeks to improve mental health services, strengthen penalties for crimes committed on school grounds, define school shootings as acts of terrorism, require schools to perform active shooter drills four times a year, and provide school personnel with panic buttons.

“Schools must be safe havens, where students can learn and teachers can teach,” Senate Majority Leader John Flanagan (R-Suffolk County) said.

The Democrats for the second straight week unsuccessfully tried to push a package of four gun control measures. A fifth that also failed would have prohibited teachers from carrying guns in classrooms.

Senate Democratic Leader Andrea Stewart-Cousins said the bills that passed “are just further proof that the Republican Party is so terrified of dealing with this country’s gun problem that they are willing to bury their heads in the sand.”

Stewart-Cousins noted deadly shooting rampages have occured at not just schools, but also movie theaters, nightclubs and workplaces.

“We cannot allow our schools to be blamed for shootings so that the NRA and its allies can get away with ignoring the real cause of this crisis — far too many guns on our streets,” she said.