Florida House Passes Legislation to Arm Teachers, Sends Bill to Governor’s Desk

The Florida House voted Tuesday in support of legislation allowing districts to arm teachers, thereby sending the bill to Gov. Ron DeSantis’ (R) desk.

On April 24, Breitbart News reported that the legislation, SB 7030, had passed the Florida Senate and was headed to the House. WJCT reported that SB 7030 passed by a vote of 22-17, with every Senate Democrat voting against giving teachers the option of being armed for classroom defense.

The Tampa Bay Times reported that the bill passed the House by a vote of 65-47.

SB 7030 was written in response to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission, an investigatory commission which found the armed teachers could have made a difference in the February 14, 2018, Parkland shooting.

The commission was headed by Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri, who spoke out in favor of arming teachers as the investigation concluded. The Associated Press quoted Gualtieri saying, “People need to keep an open mind to it as the reality is that if someone else in that school had a gun it could have saved kids’ lives.”

One Florida House Democrat–Rep. Shevrin Jones (West Park)–unsuccessfully pushed to add “implicit bias training” to SB 7030. He said, “I asked for implicit bias training because we’re talking about black boys and girls that are getting murdered by police officers! … There are bad police officers and there are bad teachers.”

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.