(Reuters) - Florida’s legislature on Wednesday passed a bill allowing teachers to carry guns in the classroom, expanding a program launched after the deadly high school shooting in Parkland with the aim of preventing another such massacre. Florida’s House of Representatives voted 65 to 47 to pass the bill after hours of debate over two days in which the Republican majority thwarted Democratic efforts to amend, stall or kill the measure. Florida’s Senate approved it 22 to 17 last week. Republican Governor Ron DeSantis is expected to sign the bill into law, enabling school districts wishing to take part in the voluntary Guardian program to arm those teachers who pass a 144-hour training course. On Feb. 14, 2018, a former student armed with a semiautomatic rifle opened fire at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, killing 17 people and wounding 17 others. President Donald Trump and the National Rifle Association have argued an armed teacher could provide the best defense against a shooter bent on mass murder. Opponents questioned whether the solution to gun violence should be the presence of even more guns and warned of the danger of a teacher misfiring during a crisis or police mistaking an armed teacher for the assailant. Passage marks a victory for gun-rights advocates, who were on the defensive a year ago when Parkland students inspired nationwide protests in favor of gun control. After the Parkland shooting, Florida lawmakers rushed through legislation that required schools to place at least one armed staff member or law-enforcement officer at each campus. The law also imposed a three-day waiting period for gun purchases and raised the age limit for buying rifles from 18 to 21 - remarkable measures in a gun-friendly state. Although last year’s law allowed some school personnel to carry weapons, guns were still banned from the classroom. Backers of arming classroom teachers revived the issue this year, arguing that school shootings often erupt too quickly for law enforcement to respond. In anticipation of passage, school employees in 40 of Florida’s 67 counties already enrolled in or planned to take the 144-hour course, a spokesman for the Speaker of the House said. Some counties have resolved not to participate in the Guardian program. Florida’s gun-control advocates had made stopping the proposal a top priority, among them Moms Demand Action For Gun Sense, which is funded by billionaire and former New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg.<doc-sep>(CNN) — The Florida House passed a controversial school safety bill that would allow teachers to carry guns on campus. The bill passed Wednesday, and is headed to the desk of Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis. It is based on recommendations made by the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission after the Parkland massacre last year. The bill expands on the measure signed last year that imposed new restrictions on firearm sales and allowed some teachers and staff to carry guns in school, CNN affiliate WFOR reported. The measure headed to the governor’s desk allows school districts to opt-in to the program and is not a requirement for teachers or districts, CNN affiliate WFOR reported. Teachers from districts that choose to join the program will have to undergo police-style training, psychiatric evaluation and drug screening. “Broward County School Board voted on a resolution against arming teachers in March 2018. We do not believe arming teachers is the best way to make our schools safe,” Broward Schools Superintendent Robert Runcie said in a statement. Rep. Dane Eagle supported the bill and said it does not mean all teachers will have weapons at their disposal. “There is no line where we are handing out guns to teachers that walk through a door,” Eagle said.<doc-sep>Florida lawmakers on Wednesday approved a bill that would allow teachers to carry firearms in response to the 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland that left 17 people dead. The House voted 65-47, with eight abstentions, on Wednesday to allow classroom instructors to be armed as a school safety measure. The Florida Senate voted last week, 22-17, pass its version of the bill. Last year, in response to the massacre, lawmakers passed a bill that would allow certain school personnel to carry firearms, but not teachers. This bill expands the state's Coach Aaron Feis Guardian Program, which was named after football coach Aaron Feis who shielded students from the Parkland shooting suspect's bullets. The measure that passed Wednesday was largely championed by Republicans, who control both chambers of the legislature, as a deterrent and decried by Democrats as risky and unsafe. GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, who previously expressed support for the legislation, is likely to sign it into law. A representative for his office did not respond to a request for comment. Newly sworn-in Gov. Ron DeSantis speaks during an event at the Freedom Tower on Jan. 09, 2019 in Miami. Joe Raedle / Getty Images The bill requires teachers who participate in the program to undergo drug testing and psychological evaluation and to complete 144 total hours of training. The training requirements include 80 hours of commission-certified firearms instruction and eight hours of drilling in active shooter of assailant scenarios, among other conditions. School boards in Broward, Palm Beach and Orange counties have already expressed opposition to allowing their teachers to be armed, according to The South Florida Sun-Sentinel. Parkland is located in Broward County. The legislation also lays out requirements for schools to annually conduct a school security risk assessment, more reporting of school safety episodes and additional guidelines regarding mental health access in schools, among other provisions. "This bill is the ultimate school-hardening law. It allows the good guy to stop the bad," Rep. Chuck Brannan, a Republican, told The South Florida Sun-Sentinel. "The bad guy will never know when the good guy is going to be there." Rep. Mike Gottlieb, a Democrat, said the legislation is creating a "police state." “Teachers need to teach,” he told the paper. “We need to create a more nurturing, loving environment in a school so people don’t grow up to become monsters. … We are creating a police state. It is wrong." Groups such as the American Civil Liberties Union also expressed reservations about the bill, arguing that it may have a deleterious effect on students, particularly students of color. "The gravest provision in this bill rests on its requirement to place more guns on school campuses. Evidence shows that when more police and resource officers are in schools, we can expect that guns around youth will lead to guns being used on youth. We know from research on police-involved shootings and implicit bias in schools that Black students will be disparately impacted," Micah Kubic, the executive director of the ACLU of Florida, said in a Wednesday statement. "State lawmakers overlooked these concerns and vouched for policing students rather than improving the quality of student’s education and development with healthy school environments," he added. As House lawmakers were debating the bill during a heated hearing on Tuesday, a school resource officer accidentally discharged his gun in the cafeteria of Weightman Middle School in Wesley Chapel. The Pasco County Sheriff’s office confirmed the incident in a statement on Twitter and said that there were no injuries and the weapon was discharged into the wall. This episode, however, bolstered claims by Democrats at the hearing that the bill would prompt similar incidents. Rep. Wengay Newton, a Democrat, called the situation "insane," according to the Sun-Sentinel. "I don’t care who had the gun go off," he said. "We had kids there. … It was a gun. It was a bullet that you can’t bring back. Listen to what we are saying. This is insane."<doc-sep>
Florida lawmakers have passed legislation that would allow more classroom teachers to carry guns in school in the latest response to the 2018 mass shooting at a Parkland high school TALLAHASSEE, Fla. -- More Florida classroom teachers could carry guns in school under a bill passed Wednesday by state lawmakers, the latest response to last year's mass shooting at a Parkland high school. The Republican-led House voted 65-47 on Wednesday to send the bill to GOP Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is expected to sign it. The measure expands an existing school "guardian" program to allow any teacher to volunteer to carry a weapon if their local school district approves. "It allows the good guys to stop the bad. The bad guys will never know when the good guys are there to shoot back," said Republican Rep. Chuck Brannan of Lake City, a retired law enforcement officer. "The guardian is the last line of defense. He or she will be there when a police officer is not." Teachers who want to carry guns in districts that choose to join the program would have to undergo police-style training, psychiatric evaluation and drug screening. Under a law passed last year immediately after the Parkland shooting, only teachers who also have another role, such as sports coach, are eligible to carry weapons on campus. The bill comes after 17 people were killed by a rifle-toting shooter at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in February 2018. Nikolas Cruz, 20, faces the death penalty if convicted of those slayings. Yet new Broward County Sheriff Gregory Tony, who was appointed by DeSantis after the suspension of former Sheriff Scott Israel in the aftermath of the Parkland shooting, said in a letter Wednesday to the local school board and superintendent that he opposes arming teachers in schools. "This program would place students, teachers, and first responders at risk, when our focus should be on keeping our children safe and making schools places where students feel they belong," Tony wrote. "Teachers enter that profession to educate children, not to serve as school security." Most Democrats voted against the bill, contending that introducing more weapons into schools would place children at risk, raise the dangers of mistaken shootings and even lead to more violence against African American students because of inherent biases. Several mentioned an incident Tuesday in Pasco County along Florida's west coast in which a police officer assigned to a middle school had his gun discharge in a cafeteria. No one was hurt. "We see accidents happen every day," said Rep. Susan Valdes, a Tampa Democrat. "This is not the answer. Don't put more guns in our schools." The bill was strongly opposed by teachers unions, and school boards in some of Florida's most counties have voted against joining the guardian program, preferring instead to leave the security job to trained police officers. But the bill's sponsor, Republican Rep. Jennifer Sullivan of Eustis, said it was the best opportunity to protect schoolchildren from future shooters — and noted it was purely voluntary for teachers to become armed guardians. "If a teacher does not want to be a guardian, we don't require them to. This bill does not require districts to arm teachers," said Sullivan, chair of the House Education Committee. The legislation also contains a number of other school safety measures, such as wider disclosure of certain student mental health records and mental screening of troubled students, greater reporting of school safety and student discipline incidents and a requirement that law enforcement officials be consulted about any threats. ————— Follow Curt Anderson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Miamicurt