School shooting plan:
Gov. Rick Scott called for $500 million in new funding for school safety and mental health programs, to be partially financed by abandoning the proposed $180 million in tax cuts in this year’s budget. Scott’s plan, announced during a news conference Friday, called for major changes in who can purchase a gun. Scott wants to ban the sale of firearms to anyone younger than 21.
“Alyssa Alhadeff, Scott Beigel, Martin Duque Anguiano...None of the plans I’m announcing today will bring any of them back,” Gov. Rick Scott said after reciting the names of all 17 killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School on Valentine’s Day. “But it’s important to remember Scott then called for $500 million in new funding for school safety and mental health programs, to be partially funding by abandoning the proposed $180 million in tax cuts in this year’s budget.
Just as significantly, Scott’s plan, announced during a news conference Friday, called for major changes in who can purchase a gun. Scott wants to ban the sale of firearms to anyone younger than 21. The accused gunman in the mass shooting at the Parkland school, Nikolas Cruz, is 19. He bought his assault-style rifle legally, police say.
And Scott is proposing a new type of violent threat restraining order that would allow firearms to be taken away from someone who makes threats. It would also allow pothem.” lice to hold someone’s firearms for 60 days after they’ve been involuntarily committed under the Baker Act.
Scott also called for banning bump stocks, an accessory that allows semi-automatic rifles to fire at almost automatic rates. The device was used during a mass shooting that killed more than 50 in Las Vegas last year at
“We can beef up mental health screenings, raise the age for gun purchases, and dream up other stop gap measures, but the threat to our children and our citizens will continue until we finally take bold action to ban assault weapons designed for the battlefield from easy access in our communities.” Oscar Braynon, Senate Minority Leader
a country musical festival.
However, he would ban neither assault weapons nor high-capacity magazines, both of which are being called for by many students who survived the Stoneman Douglas shooting.
“Banning specific weapons and punishing law abiding citizens is not going to fix this,” Scott said. “What we have to do is really focus on the problem. We’ve got to take all weapons away from people with mental illness, people who have violently threatened others.”
Of the $500 million in new funding, $450 million would go to school safety, including plans to put a police officer in every school, at a ratio of one officer per 1,000 students on campus, by the beginning of the 2018 school year. With about 3,200 students, Stoneman Douglas had one officer on site. He resigned Thursday after a Broward Sheriff ’s Office investigation found he had arrived at the building in which the shooting was taking place, but stood outside for four minutes instead of entering.
Scott’s plan would mandate active shooter training at all schools, and provide money for metal detectors, bulletproof glass, locks and other safety improvements.
The remainder of the funding under Scott’s plan would go toward mental health initiatives, including the hiring of 67 new employees at the Department of Children and Families, each of whom would be embedded in a county sheriff ’s department as crisis social welfare workers to deal with repeat cases.
Later Friday, House Speaker Richard Corcoran, R-Land O’Lakes, Senate President Joe Negron, RStuart, and several of their top deputies announced their own plan, which had many similarities to Scott’s, but two key differences.
First, the Legislature’s plan would not only raise the age limit to buy a firearm to 21 years, but also would require a three-day waiting period for all firearm
purchases. Essentially, all firearms would be treated as handguns are now.
Additionally, the legislative plan calls for allowing teachers that have completed all the training required of a law enforcement officer to carry firearms in schools.
“I disagree with arming the teachers,” Scott said. “My focus is on bringing in law enforcement. I think you have to have individuals who are well trained.”
But Corcoran called the plan the heart of the Legislature’s efforts and said it represented a “first-of-itskind” program, and that disagreements over individual items wouldn’t stop something from passing.
“Our numbers are very similar. We’re in the ballpark of $400 to $500 million,” Corcoran said. “Whether it’s the money, whether it’s the policy, our one single objective is never again, and I think we’re gonna get there.”
The Legislature’s plan will be heard in committees over the next week, where it can be amended to include any of Scott’s ideas that are not in the original draft. Democrats in the Senate have said they will try to amend it to include an assault weapons ban.
State Sen. Lizbeth Benacquisto, R-Fort Myers, ended the legislature’s press conference by calling on law enforcement and social services to begin now to prevent another tragedy.
“Look back over your call logs and the tips that you’ve gotten in the community,”
she said. “See if there is another person like this out there.”
Senate Minority Leader Oscar Braynon, D-Miami Gardens, pointed out that the plans of both the governor and the legislature include two Democratic bills that never received a committee hearing during the ongoing legislative session, which ends March 9: A ban on bump stocks, and a restraining order that allows law enforcement to take guns from people who make violent threats. But he said without an assault weapons ban, the plans are not enough.
“We can beef up mental health screenings, raise the age for gun purchases, and dream up other stop gap measures, but the threat to our children and our citizens will continue until we finally take bold action to ban assault weapons designed for the battlefield from easy access in our communities,” he said. “Without that, the voices of the students, and the will of the people, continue to be ignored.”
The 17 who died at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School are: Alyssa Alhadeff, Scott Beigel, Martin Duque Anguiano, Nicholas Dworet, Aaron Feis, Jamie Guttenberg, Chris Hixon, Luke Hoyer, Cara Loughran, Gina Montalto, Joaquin Oliver, Alaina Petty, Meadow Pollack, Helena Ramsay, Alexander Schachter, Carmen Schentrup, Peter Wang.