Florida passes gun regulations
Legislators create program to enforce school safety
Florida lawmakers buck the National Rifle Association to pass new firearms regulations and create a program for arming some school employees in a rare act of Republican compromise on the divisive issue of gun violence.
Florida lawmakers bucked the National Rifle Association on Wednesday to pass new firearms regulations and create a program for arming some school employees in a rare act of Republican compromise on the divisive issue of gun violence.
The response to the slayings at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., signaled a major shift for a state known as a legal laboratory for gun rights activists. It could become a blueprint for other states looking at new measures to address mass shootings.
A bipartisan vote of 67-50 in the state House ended an emotional three-week process in which thousands of students marched on the state capital in Tallahassee to demand change.
After weeks of debate, lawmakers approved a bill that would impose a three-day waiting period for most purchases of long guns and raise the minimum age for purchasing those weapons to 21. The legislation also includes millions of dollars to improve school security and train and arm school employees.
The action comes as federal efforts to further regulate guns and improve the federal background check system have sputtered in Washington, caught up in the formidable political divide that has undermined previous attempts to tighten rules for firearms.
The U.S. Senate has not scheduled any debate on gun legislation, with a noncontroversial bill on background checks stalled. The House of Representatives is only planning a vote next week on a new grant program to educate teachers and students about how to identify and intervene when school violence breaks out.
President Donald Trump, who plans to meet with leaders of the video game industry Thursday, has not put forward his own school safety proposal, after initially saying he supported arming teachers, raising the age for some purchases and even removing guns from people deemed dangerous before a judicial review.
Gov. Rick Scott, R, who supports most but not all of the provisions in the Florida bill, reiterated his opposition to arming teachers Wednesday, but stopped short of threatening a veto.
In addition to the waiting period and an increase in the minimum age, the bill also would ban the possession or sale of bump stocks, which can make guns shoot with the speed of an automatic weapons.
Bump stocks were not used in the Feb. 14 killings. However, they were used in the mass shooting at a Las Vegas concert last October that killed 58 people.
Florida lawmakers decided on a broad spectrum of measures to respond to the shooting, including money to raze and rebuild the school building where the shooting occurred, funds for a memorial to the 17 killed and money for an investigation into potential law enforcement failures around the Douglas attack.
State law enforcement would get new powers to temporarily remove weapons from people deemed to be a risk, and there would be a new judicial process to remove guns and ammunition from people deemed a threat to themselves or others.
The Florida bill also provides nearly $100 million to improve school security and $67 million to fund a new sheriff program that would allow school districts to voluntarily train and arm employees who do not exclusively teach in the classroom. These new “school marshals” would have to pass 132 hours of law enforcement training, a background check and additional diversity training.