Yes, protect students from gun violence, but Florida might put a target on everyone’s back | Opinion
A bill in the Florida Senate is all about enhancing school safety — until it isn’t. And that’s the problem. The legislation leaves the majority Floridians — including those very students — even more vulnerable to gun violence.
In the state’s ongoing acknowledgment of the horrific massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland — Feb. 14 is the fifth anniversary — Sen. Jay Collins, a Republican lawmaker from Tampa, introduced legislation that would standardize the process for handling students whose behavior is perceived as a threat to safety; create a data portal to report threats statewide; and expand the program that allows school district employees to carry firearms on campus.
The first two could fill in a lot of blanks on the way to identifying problem students and keeping track of them, but only if it leads to them getting the help — counseling, therapy, mental healthcare — and making it stick.
Last year, Nikolas Cruz was sentenced to life in prison for slaughtering 14 students and three faculty members at the Parkland high school.
But long before reaching that point, he already was known to be troubled and in mental health programming. He fell through the cracks anyway. As for district employees carrying firearms, we’ve always been skeptical as to whether these supposed good guys with guns will cause more good than harm.
The Legislature has continued to tinker with the sweeping safety policies passed a mere month after Cruz entered the school that Valentine’s Day in 2018. The legislation was an extraordinary feat, putting the Republican Legislature and governor, for once, crosswise with the NRA, to whom lawmakers bowed down time and again. It also was bipartisan, responsible and overdue.
Not so this current Senate proposal, for the school-safety legislation gives palatable cover for the rest of the bill, which careens off the rails in its recklessness.
The companion to a bill that is galloping along in the Florida House, the Senate proposal also allows Florida residents to carry concealed firearms — no permit or training required.
Right now, Floridians have to undergo a background check, fingerprinting and training. In addition, first-time applicants have to pay a $97 fee.
The Editorial Board already is on the record as to its dismay at the dangerous lengths Gov. DeSantis and Republicans and his — yes, his — Legislature will go to irresponsibly placate their base, under the guise of “freedom.”
If they are so unconcerned about endangering even more lives in Florida, what other safety measures will be next? Eliminating the need for driver’s licenses and lessons to operate a vehicle? The hypocrisy stinks.
In South Florida, where even an accidental nudge at the checkout can end in a shooting death; where drive-bys are the cost of doing business with drug dealers; where children are the innocent victims of those drive-bys; where distraught husbands take their wives’ lives before taking their own; where ‘tweens think it’s be cool to take a gun to school; and where accidents do happen, this measure will be a scourge.
And it makes a mockery of those common-sense laws that the Legislature passed immediately after the carnage at Parkland.
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This story was originally published February 14, 2023 at 4:00 AM.