Florida Governor Rick Scott signed a gun control bill on Friday based on provisions recommended by President Donald Trump in the wake of the mass shooting last month at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.
Trump recommended raising the minimum age to purchase a gun to 21, banning the sale of bump stocks, seizing guns from the mentally unfit, and arming teachers. The Florida bill, titled Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act, included the same provisions Trump suggested.
The new law allows certain teachers to be armed with the permission of the local school district and sheriff’s office. The provision was named after Aaron Feis, a coach who shielded students from gunfire during the shooting on Feb. 14. Trump suggested that properly trained teachers should be paid a bonus for carrying a weapon in school. The Florida legislature did not adopt that recommendation.
The alleged shooter, Nikolas Cruz, reportedly used an AR-15 rifle to gun down 17 students and teachers at the high school on Valentine’s Day.
Another call came from a relative who urged officers to seize Cruz’s weapon. Another call prompted a deputy to investigate a report that Cruz “planned to shoot up the school.”
Scot Peterson, 54, was suspended without pay before resigning and retiring. He was the school’s resource officer.
Two other deputies have been placed on restricted duty while Internal Affairs investigates how they handled the two warnings specifically regarding Cruz potentially launching a school shooting.
Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel slammed Peterson but refused to take responsibility for the failures of Peterson and other officers involved.
“I’m completely disgusted,” Broward County Commissioner Michael Udine, a former mayor of Parkland, whose daughter attends Stoneman Douglas, told the Miami Herald. “There is nobody in authority talking to each other and every organization that had a chance to stop this completely failed our children from top to bottom.”
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