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House Panel Approves Guns In Schools
March 12, 2015
A measure that would allow school employees and volunteers to carry guns on campus was approved by a House panel Wednesday as lawmakers continue to discuss the meeting place between firearms and education.
The legislation (HB 19) received the backing of the House K-12 Subcommittee on a bipartisan, 10-1 vote. But one lawmaker who supported the bill voiced concern about the measure.
Under the bill, sponsored by Rep. Greg Steube, R-Sarasota, school superintendents could allow designated people to carry weapons on campus. Those people could be current or former law enforcement officers or current or former members of the military. They would have to pass background checks, take school-safety courses and have concealed-weapons licenses.
Republicans highlighted the fact that the ultimate choice on allowing weapons at schools would lie with local officials. Supporters contend that allowing designated people to carry guns on campus could improve school safety.
“It’s completely up to the district and the superintendent whether they want to do it and how they want to implement it in working with their local law enforcement agencies,” Steube said.
“What is a solution in Miami-Dade may not be a solution in Nassau County, and vice versa,” said Rep. Janet Adkins, a Fernandina Beach Republican who chairs the subcommittee.
But Rep. Joe Geller of Aventura, the top Democrat on the committee, said he believed the state should trust law-enforcement agencies to handle school safety.
“I don’t think an ‘American Sniper’ approach is the way to protect our kids,” said Geller, the lone vote against the bill.
At least one Democrat who supported the measure was also reluctant. Rep. Bruce Antone, D-Orlando, said he worried that some volunteers who aren’t law-enforcement officers “may not have the temperament, the self-control or the discipline to properly deal with situations” that come up at schools.
Bills to allow guns in public schools have been boosted in the House following the 2012 school massacre in Newtown, Conn., where more than two dozen people died. In 2013, a similar bill passed two committees but failed to get a vote on the floor; last year, legislation resembling Steube’s was approved by the full House.
But the Senate has been more hesitant about the idea. A similar measure never got a hearing 2013 and passed just one of its four committees last year. The Senate companion to Steube’s bill (SB 180) hasn’t been scheduled for a hearing this year.
Meanwhile, proposals that would allow people with concealed-weapons licenses to carry guns on college and university campuses have been moving on both sides of the Capitol.
by Brandon Larrabee, The News Service of Florida
Comments
9 Responses to “House Panel Approves Guns In Schools”
Lee, Just the idea that there MIGHT be someone carrying serves as a deterrent that will prevent a large percentage of these cowards from trying to attack a school. ONE Teacher or administrator with a gun, even on the other end of the campus can get to the scene a hell of a lot quicker than a cop that’s patrolling miles away. And your concern about accidents is unfounded, the number of accidental shootings by licensed concealed carry holders is statistically insignificant.The total number of children under 14 killed by firearms accidents is about 100 per year. Out of a population of about 350,000,000, 100 people is .000028%. Your concerns are unfounded.
I don’t want a gun in my home and I surely don’t want one in my child’s classroom. An armed teacher in one end of a school is of little benefit to people at the other end of the school. And what does an armed school look like? Having a gun, even it you’re good at target practice, does not make you prepared to react quickly. Are teachers going to take their guns to lunch? To the library? Are all teachers going to have to undergo some psychological exam to qualify to be armed? And who is going to take responsibility when an accident happens? We need to work at keeping danger out, not bringing more in.
All those people against this idea: We’ve tried it your way, the “Gun-Free Zones” do NOTHING to deter these nutjobs that want to get famous. It has been seen over and over, that when these coward are met with ANY armed resistance, they either surrender or kill themselves (both outcomes work for me). Just the possibility that there may be somebody there to fight back will stop 95% of these idiots from even attempting an attack in a school. All these predictions of this causing blood baths are laughable, the anti-gunners say the same thing every time a new Pro-Gun law (Concealed Carry, Stand-Your-Ground, etc) is enacted, and their dire predictions NEVER come true.
So would we all have felt safer if the custodian they just arrested at Jim Allen Elementary school had had a gun? This is a horrible idea. The answer to gun violence is not more guns. Just ask the mother of the 6 year old boy who was just shot and killed in St. Louis yesterday. She had a gun, so did the bad guy. What happened was her 6 year old son shot dead, and a 15 year old and a 69 year old caught in the crossfire. The bad guy got away.
This is not good. EVERYONE: Please pray for our schools. We all benefit from having good and safe schools.
This is a good thing. The next nutjob that wants to shoot kids at school should get a bullet answering back tout sweet.
I have mixed emotions about this. I may get off the fence if I were convinced that the ones carrying the weapons had at least the level of training a police officer receives. The training required to get my CC permit was woefully inadequet for carrying a weapon in around a mob of kids.
It is evident that fear has a lot of power.
This is a very common sense bill that needs to be implemented. Times have changed and with that, laws need to be written so they are proactive and not reactive. Hate guns, scared of them, think they can just go off all by themselves and kill people? Those are the people who don’t want this bill passed.
It has been said and is so very true in the ONLY way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Imagine in Newtown if one teacher had a firearm available when the shooting began. Or live with the reality of that situation that all those killed had to wait for the police to arrive…