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Florida Senate votes against arming most classroom teachers

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PARKLAND: Florida’s Republican-controlled Senate voted on Monday to exclude most classroom teachers from a plan to allow school staff to carry firearms as part of a package of measures in response to a school shooting that took 17 lives last month.


The amendment was designed in part to increase support from many parents, law enforcement officials and legislators in both parties who object to arming teachers, as well as from Governor Rick Scott, a Republican also on record as opposed to the idea.


The exclusion was adopted by voice vote as part of a package of legislation the Senate passed a short time later, 20-18, to raise the minimum legal age for buying all guns in Florida to 21 and impose a three-day waiting period for any gun purchase.


The minimum age for handguns nationally is already 21. But a person can be as young as 18 to buy a rifle in Florida, with no waiting period.


Authorities say the man charged with killing 14 students and three adult educators at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School last month in Parkland, Florida, was 18 when he legally purchased the semiautomatic AR-15-style assault rifle used in the massacre.


The Senate-passed bill represents a break with the National Rifle Association gun rights lobby, which has resisted proposals to raise age limits or impose new waiting limits.


The bill now moves to Florida’s Republican-controlled House of Representatives, where a committee approved similar legislation last week. There was no immediate word from the governor’s office on whether he would support the bill passed by the Senate. The Florida Senate over the weekend rejected an amendment to ban assault weapons.


As passed, the Senate bill echoes many of the proposals endorsed by Scott after the February 14 massacre, including new powers for police to temporarily seize guns from people involuntarily committed or deemed a danger to themselves or others by a court.


It also allows police to petition a court for a “risk-protection” order barring an individual from possessing firearms if that person is judged as dangerous because of a mental illness or violent behaviour.


Authorities have said the accused Parkland gunman, Nikolas Cruz, had a history of mental issues, numerous encounters with local police and was expelled from the high school last year for unspecified disciplinary problems.


Federal and local law enforcement have also acknowledged receiving multiple warnings about his potential for violence before the shooting.


The House bill includes a measure allowing local sheriffs offices to create voluntary programmes to designating school personnel as armed “marshals,” subject to school district approval and special training. US President Donald Trump has voiced support for such a plan, also advocated by the NRA.


— Reuters


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