(Reuters) - Texas Governor Greg Abbott unveiled a $110 million program intended to increase school safety by putting additional trained marshals inside schools and more closely monitoring social media for threats in the aftermath of a deadly school shooting earlier this month. Community members stood in support as students and administrators returned for the first day of class since a deadly mass shooting in Santa Fe, Texas, U.S., May 29, 2018. REUTERS/Pu Ying Huang The plan was announced nearly two weeks after a 17-year-old armed with a shotgun and pistol killed 10 students and educators at Santa Fe High School in the Houston area. It followed a shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, in February in which 17 people, mostly students, were massacred. “Everybody in this entire process and everybody in the state of Texas never wants to see another occasion where innocent students are gunned down in their own schools,” Abbott told a news conference in Dallas on Wednesday. The proposed funding works out to about $20 per student in a state that has about 5.5 million students enrolled in its public schools. The 40-point plan, which followed meetings last week between Abbott and education and law enforcement officials, calls for enhanced mental health resources for students and new metal detectors for extra security at schools, Abbott said in a statement. The Texas Democratic Party issued a statement condemning the governor’s plan, claiming that he failed to directly address gun crimes that occur in the United States. “Nothing in Abbott’s plans address the reality that it is too easy for a weapon to end up in the hands of someone wanting to cause harm,” Texas Democratic Party chair Gilberto Hinojosa said in a statement. Abbott is an ardent defender of the right to bear arms under the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution. Soon after the shooting at Santa Fe High School he said that any proposed legal changes that he would consider to improve school safety would “protect Second Amendment rights.” His proposals include eliminating a rule that requires some school marshals to store their weapons in a safe while on campus. Abbott said he would ask lawmakers to consider legislation to allow law enforcement, families, school staff or a district attorney to file a petition seeking the removal of firearms from a potentially dangerous person only after legal due process was provided.<doc-sep>(CNN) — Texas Gov. Greg Abbott unveiled a plan Wednesday to improve school safety, including allowing law enforcement officers to take breaks and fill out reports in schools and increasing the number of armed school marshals in classrooms. “This plan is a starting point, not an ending place,” Abbott told reporters in Dallas less than two weeks after authorities say a teenager shot and killed 10 people at Santa Fe High School. “This plan puts the state on a pathway to ensure healthier families, safer schools and safer communities in the state of Texas.” Known as the governor’s School and Firearm Safety Action Plan, the 40-page list of recommendations includes more than $120 million in funding from various sources for increased law enforcement presence in schools and training for armed marshals. “As one Santa Fe student said … arming teachers and not knowing who is armed, that is what we need,” Abbott said. “When an active shooter situation arises, the difference between life and death can be a matter of seconds. Trained security personal can make all the difference.” Abbott proposed “collaborative working agreements” between schools and law enforcement to include schools on regular patrols, allow officers to take breaks at schools and provide them with rooms to fill out police reports. “My plan increases the number of school marshals by training more school marshals this summer at no cost to schools and by proposing increasing the number of school marshals per campus,” he said. The governor’s plan calls for up to one marshal for every 100 students, allowing the marshals to carry their firearms and streamlining their training. The plan was announced a day after Santa Fe High students returned to the school south of Houston for the first time since the May 18 shooting. One Abbott proposal subject to legislative approval is a change to Texas’ gun storage law. Currently, prosecutors can file a misdemeanor charge against a gun owner who failed to secure a weapon when a child under 17 gains access to a “readily dischargeable” firearm from that person’s property. Abbott proposed changing the age limit to 18. The accused Santa Fe High shooter is 17. In addition, the governor – a strong advocate for Second Amendment rights – said the state would make about 100,000 gun locks available free of charge to Texans but use of the devices would not be mandatory. The plan also recommended $20 million for the expansion of mental health screening and services to help identify and remove students who pose “imminent threats of harm.” The proposal includes strategies for “hardening” school buildings by reducing entrances and exits and the installation of “active shooter alarm systems” that would prevent students and staff from rushing out from classroom into the path of a shooter. Implementation of the plan would be left up to individual schools districts, Abbott said. Abbott’s announcement followed a series of roundtable discussions between the Republican governor and shooting victims, parents, school officials, law enforcement experts and others on ways to curb violence in the classroom. Abbott said some proposals could be implemented by the start of the next school year. In a statement, Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence co-president Kris Brown criticized Abbott’s plan, asking, “What are you planning to do about the guns?” Brown said it is “frighteningly easy for dangerous people to get access to a gun, and this proposal does little to stop that.” Abbott’s proposals were prompted by the slaying of 10 people and wounding of 10 others at Santa Fe High. Authorities said student Dimitrios Pagourtzis, 17, walked into the school with a shotgun and a pistol and killed eight students and two teachers. Charged with capital murder of multiple people and aggravated assault on a public servant, Pagourtzis has not entered a plea. The governor’s sessions last week focused on gun regulations, mental health issues, the causes of gun violence and victims and their families. One of the participants, Round Rock police Chief Allen Banks, spoke of the dangers of allowing “somebody that is not proficient” with a firearm “in a position … where they’ll have to use deadly force.” “Training has to be paramount,” Banks said. Others spoke about the shortage of counselors to identify potential warning signs of violence in students. On Tuesday, Santa Fe High students, staff and parents attended a general assembly at the school with Abbott.<doc-sep>It was no surprise that the proposals presented on Wednesday by Mr. Abbott, who is running for re-election this year, were heavily skewed toward hardening schools and bolstering campus security and mental health programs, while failing to endorse any significant new restrictions on gun ownership or sales. Mr. Abbott is a staunch gun rights advocate who has urged Texans to buy more guns. And he is governor in a state where polling indicates that far more Republicans — the party that controls every major political office in Texas — blame mass shootings on failures of the mental health system than they do on the failure to pass more gun laws. A series of round tables on school safety organized by Mr. Abbott after the Santa Fe shooting excluded most influential gun control and teachers’ organizations, and were seen by many as stacked against any significant tightening of gun laws. Ed Scruggs, vice chairman of Texas Gun Sense, a nonprofit gun violence prevention group, said that Mr. Abbott’s proposals were “not enough to really tackle the issue of gun violence and keep guns out of the hands of people who shouldn’t have them.” Mr. Scruggs, the only gun control advocate to take part in the school safety round tables, called the governor’s failure to support background checks for all gun purchases “a missed opportunity.” But he said he was encouraged that Mr. Abbott was open to a red flag law, and that he had endorsed tougher gun storage laws. Polls conducted by the University of Texas and The Texas Tribune have shown wide support among both Republicans and Democrats in the state for background checks on all gun sales, a measure that would eliminate the ability to purchase firearms in person or online from private sellers without the standard F.B.I. check on the buyer’s criminal, domestic abuse and mental health background. But seven times as many Texas Republicans blame mass shootings across the United States on mental health system failures as on gun laws, a University of Texas/Texas Tribune poll found in October 2017. The same poll indicated that five times as many Republicans in the state believed that more guns would make the country safer than those who believed that they would make it less safe.<doc-sep>
Texas Governor Greg Abbott speaks at the National Rifle Association convention in Dallas, Texas, May 4, 2018. (Lucas Jackson/Reuters) Texas governor Greg Abbott on Wednesday introduced a plan to prevent more gun violence from hitting his state’s schools. The Republican governor’s “School and Firearm Safety Action Plan” outlines 40 strategies to prevent shootings, including identifying students with mental-health issues, providing schools with active-shooter training, beefing up school-security staffs, and adding more police officers to schools. “This plan is a starting point, not an ending place,” Abbott said as he announced the plan at the Dallas School District headquarters. “It provides strategies that can be used before the next school year begins to keep our students safe when they return to school. School discipline should be tightened for students who cause trouble, and schools should monitor social media to keep an eye on potential threats, the plan recommends. The governor is also asking the state legislature to enact a “red flag” law, which would allow a threatening person to be stripped of his firearms through a legal process before he could use them against innocent people. The $110 million plan, a result of days of discussions between Abbott, victims, parents, teachers, law-enforcement officers, legislators, and others, already has $70 million in funds available, and the governor’s office plans to ask lawmakers to make up the gap. A young gunman shot up Santa Fe High School near Houston, Texas less than two weeks ago, killing ten people. In November, another shooter killed 26 at First Baptist Church in Sutherland Springs, Texas, during the Sunday morning service. Abbott said he may call a special session for state legislators to vote on some of his safety proposals if there seems to be enough support. “When an active-shooter situation arises, the difference between life and death can be a matter of seconds,” he said. “Trained security personnel can make all the difference.” Gun-control activists were not satisfied with Abbott’s proposals and demanded that he push lawmakers to regulate firearms more strictly, saying the problem is that guns are simply too easy to get. The answer to gun violence “isn’t some deep-seated secret,” said the Brady Campaign to Reduce Gun Violence. “It’s the fact that it’s frighteningly easy for dangerous people to get access to a gun, and this proposal does little to stop that.” Send a tip to the news team at NR.