On the horrific heels of the Parkland, Florida school shooting on Valentine’s Day, the Florida legislature made some moves to abate a copycat and seal cracks which may have permitted a killer to walk unheeded.
Increasingly prompted by the Parkland school massacre which took 17 lives and injured many others, the Florida House and Senate got busy. Lawmakers in the sunshine state’s Tallahassee Capitol building sponsored bills addressing armed teachers, mental health, and gun sales, and a new High School Public Safety Commission.
Florida Senate
Aptly named, the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Safety Act was passed by a narrow Florida Senate vote of 20-18 on Monday, March 5, 2018. Perhaps bittersweet, the Act was named after the Valentine’s Day fusillade at the namesake high school whereby a suspended student walked upon campus grounds and unloosed a twisted knot of mental health burdens while armed with an AR-15 and unimpeded movement.
Authored by Senator Bill Galvano (R), SB 7026, also known as the Public Safety bill, the Act is funded by $400 million in appropriations and has caveat characteristics encompassing across-the-board school safety. The Act authorizes grants for “student crime watch programs” (see something, say something) through the Crime Stoppers Trust Fund. This law also gives birth to the Office of Safe Schools under the state’s Department of Education.
As it directly relates to Florida’s law enforcement components, the Act encourages each of the state’s 67 county sheriffs to “establish a Coach Aaron Feis Guardian Program” appointing “certain volunteer school employees as school guardians.” Clarified, the “certain volunteers” part refers to training/arming only teachers who have duties other than solely teaching in classrooms. For example, school coaches and general school employees are eligible to be trained by law enforcement and carry firearms on school grounds. Additionally, any teacher with a prior law enforcement background is an exception to the rule. Schools’ Junior ROTC teachers also made the cut.
Including myself, many voices across the nation have opined that military veterans ought to be emplaced in our schools, supplementing already-assigned SROs. That goes for former law enforcement officers as well. OpsLens recently published an example of this which Tennessee lawmakers are mulling after writing legislation to hire off-duty cops for added school security/patrols.
The Act has nitty-gritty features to it as well, such as prohibitions against individuals who have been “adjudicated mentally defective or who have been committed to a mental institution from owning or possessing a firearm until certain relief [by court order] is obtained.”
Albeit vague, the law also restricts purchasing firearms until “a certain age” is reached. Bandied about amply lately, raising the legal age to purchase a firearm from 18 to 21 is likely what the loosely-stated reference is denoting in this context. Pertaining to firearms sales, the bill also prohibits specified acts relating to the sale and possession of bump- stocks.”
Lastly, Senator Galvano’s bill seeks to create the “Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission” to be aligned with the state’s premier Florida Department of Law Enforcement, the very entity currently piecing-together all the elements leading up to the Valentine’s Day fallout, including the ostensible failure of the school’s assigned SRO.
Although Florida Democratic Senator Lauren Book physically embraced Senator Galvano for composing the Public Safety bill soon after 17 funerals were had, her emotion ebbed the other way, decrying “Do I think this bill goes far enough? No! No, I don’t!”
Nevertheless, it is something promptly placed during a sensitive and emotion-filled time in Florida —and reflective of other school districts’ concerns— whereby any flow toward robust resolution is bridled by those with which this law seeks to protect and preserve.
On February 14, 2018 Senator Galvano said, “The tragedy in Parkland is heartbreaking. There is no reason I should be safer in the state capitol than our children are in their schools. Something must change.”
With yesterday’s bill passing among the Florida senate, Mr. Galvano iterated, “We listened and we’re trying. We’re trying hard, we don’t have all the answers but we are giving it our best and we will keep giving it our best.” Who could ask for anything more? Perhaps the parents of the students slain in Parkland; no one can begrudge them that salvation.
As Florida Senator Book summed-up, “This is the first step in saying never again.”
The last “action” regarding this bill was today, March 6, 2018, and re-analyzed by the Florida House of Representatives.
