Post-FSU Shooting Package Arming Professors Clears Both Chambers

The Florida House gave final approval Thursday, the second-to-last-day of the scheduled regular legislative session, to a package formulated in the aftermath of the shootings at Florida State University last year that would arm professors.

The House approval followed the Senate’s Wednesday.

HB 757, sponsored by Rep. Michelle Salzman, a Republican from Escambia County, first passed the House two weeks ago, but differences in a provision related to private K-12 school security tied it up.

Tuesday, Senate sponsor Sen. Don Gaetz, a Republican from Crestview, told the Phoenix that the two chambers would pass the bill but that more conversations were needed with the House, postponing the Senate’s scheduled vote by one day.

The private school provision would’ve added to the section of statute providing security for Jewish day schools. The House wanted to include Roman Catholic schools in that section. The Senate wanted to create a new section of statute providing security for schools from all religions that receive a credible threat.

The compromise? Forget adding anything and keep the bill focused on higher education.

“We don’t want to get hung up because the Board of Governors, the State University System, the state colleges asked for this bill. They believe that it’s critical,” Gaetz said Wednesday, following Senate passage.

“All you have to do is turn on the news today and see that violence is no respecter of sectarian lines or of educational lines or of institutional lines, and I believe that our state universities and our state colleges are properly concerned with making sure that their campuses are hardened — that they have a plan for dealing proactively with threats and dealing with threats when, God forbid, they might arise.”  

Thursday, a gunman opened fire in Norfolk, Virginia, at Old Dominion University. One person and the shooter died and two others were wounded.

A synagogue in Michigan was targeted Thursday, too, by a man with a rifle who rammed his vehicle into the building, AP News reported.

Education Commissioner and Board of Governors member Anastasios Kamoutsas posted to social media his praise for the bill’s passage. “Having guardians in schools is one of the most effective ways to ensure highly trained personnel are in place to respond to an active assailant.”