PA Bill Number: HB335
Title: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons.
Description: In inchoate crimes, further providing for prohibited offensive weapons. ...
Last Action: Removed from table
Last Action Date: May 1, 2024
League of Women Voters will lead battle with NRA over 'guns on campus' bills :: 08/10/2015
TALLAHASSEE | The League of Women Voters of Florida said it will lead opposition this year to two controversial proposals to authorize loaded guns on school campuses, from small elementary schools to colleges brimming with tens of thousands of students.
Similar bills died during the 2015 legislative session, mainly because the chairs of certain Senate committees refused to call them up for a vote.
But the National Rifle Association and other gun rights groups say they are ready to try again in 2016.
The counterpoint to the pro-gun arguments mainly came from school leaders and campus public safety officials. This year, the League of Women Voters wants to help amplify those arguments using its statewide network of activists.
“Campus carry bills are very concerning because they really have nothing to do with the Second Amendment,” said Orlando resident Patti Brigham, chairwoman of the organization’s Gun Safety Committee that was launched last year. “This is a public safety issue.”
Brigham organized a summit to be held in Orlando on Thursday and which she hopes will lay the groundwork for the league’s campaign against the gun proposals when lawmakers begin considering bills later this year.
Senate Bill 72 would allow school superintendents to allow a single employee or volunteer at individual public schools to bring their licensed weapons inside the classroom as a safety precaution. Senate Bill 68 would allow people with concealed weapon permits to bring their firearms onto public university or college campuses.
Rep. Greg Steube, R-Sarasota, is sponsoring House Bill 4001, which is that chamber’s version of the “guns on campus.” The House doesn’t yet have a companion for SB 72, the K-12 proposal that is even more polarizing than the one affecting colleges and universities.
Steube first sponsored the K-12 gun bill in the session after the mass shooting that killed 20 students and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn. He said he isn’t sure if he will try again this year.
Marion Hammer, the NRA’s longtime Florida lobbyist, said her organization did not join other gun rights groups in taking a position on the K-12 gun bill last year. She said it required too many qualifications for a safety role that could possibly be handled by hiring security guards. But the NRA was and will remain active in its support of the “guns on campus” legislation, she said.
“This is a bill that needs to pass, and sooner or later it is going to pass,” Hammer said. “Gun-free zones on college campuses are safe havens for criminals to commit rape and kill people. And that is wrong.”
Nearly every organization connected with state universities — including the Board of Governors, university presidents, campus police chiefs, faculty unions and student government leaders — opposes the proposal.
Tonnette Graham, student body president at Florida A&M University and president of the Florida Student Association that represents the interests of all state university students, said more guns would not make campuses safer.
“If somebody gets shot, how can you tell who is the victim? Who started it?” she said. “So it’s not in the best interest of the safety of our college students in the state of Florida.”
In similar fashion, K-12 school leaders have frowned upon that gun bill. Duval County Superintendent Nikolai Vitti doesn’t support the proposal and neither does Nassau County Superintendent John Ruis, who said there are better ways to improve safety.
“I would feel more confident in a professionally trained law enforcement officer in responding to a threat in a school and in the decision-making process involved,” Ruis said via email. “Also, school personnel have their specific responsibilities and to expect a timely response from their assigned location in an active crisis situation may not be feasible.”
Last year, both proposals were eligible for votes on the House floor and expected to be approved mostly along party lines. It was in the Senate where moderate Republicans declined to schedule the bills for required committee votes, ultimately killing them when time ran out.
For the higher ed legislation, the opposition of former senator and Florida State University President John Thrasher might have contributed to its downfall.
Thrasher remains opposed and continues to have sway with former colleagues.
Sen. Don Gaetz, R-Niceville, said he voted in favor of the “guns on campus” bill in committee last year and would do it again if the measure came before him and the language is the same. He said he isn’t sure how he would vote on the K-12 proposal because it would depend on what the bill says when it comes up for a vote.
Gaetz said how the bills perform in the 2016 session will depend on which Senate committees they are referred to and how the chairmen of these committees feel about the proposals. He hopes members are given a chance to vote regardless of how leaders feel.
“I don’t believe in holding bills back and not debating them,” Gaetz said. “I don’t fear the debate.”
