The Florida Legislature's Push To Arm Teachers, Explained

The Parkland massacre has been a turning point for the United States. The road opened last week by Florida, with the first specific program to arm teachers in schools, could have continuity in a forthcoming federal legislation. The White House plan on firearms confirms Donald Trump's priority goal of shielding schools, with a proposal that would force the fifty States of the Union. The project supports an initiative that is already in the process of the Congress and which currently expects a 50 million of dollars a year. According to the draft, employees and professors with previous experience, and with a specific profile, would receive training and the subsequent license to carry weapons within the schools. A preventive measure to deal with possible shootings.

Since Nikolas Cruz stained the Florida Institute's death last Valentine's Day, nothing has been the same. The sonorous student demand to restrict access to firearms has received rapid response in one of the most permissive states, with the approval of the first limitations in more than twenty years. But it has been the security of the centres, and the possibility of arming the professors, the one that has shot the controversy. The debate led him, still in full mourning, Trump himself, convinced that "gun-free zones" are the biggest claim for those who want to attack our schools. " Despite the initial reluctance of a sector of parents, students and the educational community, who listened to the presidential proposals on a moving meeting in the White House, the initiative has been paving the way. Last week, the Florida Congress passed the law with the Republican majority and democratic rejection. On Friday, not without previously confessing some doubts about the suitability of arming teachers, Governor Rick Scott, Republican, ended up signing the historical text. Teachers dedicated only to teaching curricular subjects are excluded, but not those that have as their object the extracurricular activities.

Yesterday, the White House published its own plan, which represents a specific endorsement of the so-called law to curb violence in schools, driven by the Republican majority in Congress. In addition to training employees and teachers at the centers in the use of firearms, the text includes infrastructure improvements. Future legislative measures envisage the establishment of a federally-based task force that will analyse violence with firearms and other safety-related issues in schools. The draft law also provides for public incentives to those states that find a proper legislative route for the licensing of weapons within schools.

The presidential plan has also collected the rest of the measures announced by Trump, as the reinforcement of the review of the records of the buyers of firearms. In the case of Florida, the new legislation has extended to three days a sales process that until now was almost immediate. It is intended that the authorities and the vendors have room to check the antecedents, mental and criminal, of the applicants to acquire them. It is taken for the approval of the draft of law promoted by the Republicans in the Chambers, that the text of the White House expressly supports. The only doubts lie in how the point that a few years ago derailed the consensus between conservatives and Democrats will be resolved. The Republicans continue to aspire to maintain their commitment to the National Rifle Association that carriers of weapons licenses in one State can freely use it in any of the remaining ones. As then, the Democratic minority is still opposing.

Although the White House maintains the commitment launched by Trump to elevate from 18 to 21 years the minimum age for the acquisition of some weapons, such as the semi-automatic rifle used by the Parkland killer, it is unlikely that the Republicans will move forward a measure to L That NRA is opposed, with a great influence on the Conservative majority. On the other hand, it is a matter of time before the so-called "bump stocks" are banned, the devices that multiply the capacity of the rifles, as if they were automatic. The White House proposal has an almost unanimous consensus.