\n<\/p>\n
To carry a gun on campus, faculty and staff will have to complete 144 hours of training.<\/p>\n
The Florida Legislature approved a bill last week that will allow faculty and staff at the state\u2019s colleges and universities to train as \u201cguardians\u201d and carry guns on campus. To become law, it just needs the approval of Gov. Ron DeSantis, whose December budget proposal allocated $6\u00a0million to implement the program at Florida\u2019s 12 universities and 28 colleges, The Orlando Sentinel<\/em> reported.\u00a0<\/p>\n A similar program is already in place in Florida\u2019s K\u201312 schools, enacted after a 2018 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland left 17 people dead. The proposal to expand the program to higher education came after a shooting at Florida State University last year in which two people died.\u00a0<\/p>\n While supporters of the legislation said it would make campuses safer, opponents argued against that notion before lawmakers approved it. \u201cThere\u2019s a lot of violence going on in America right now. People are on edge,\u201d said Robin Goodman, an English professor and president of FSU\u2019s faculty union chapter, according to the Sentinel<\/em>. \u201cI just think that having more guns is going to make us more at risk.\u201d<\/p>\n The program is voluntary and will require guardians to complete 144 hours of training, including 132 hours of firearm training and 12 hours of conflict de-escalation tactics, undergo psychological evaluation, and submit to random drug tests. Additionally, the bill prohibits shooting a gun within 1,000 feet of a school during operating hours or events, and requires universities to adopt specified emergency response plans and promote an app for reporting suspicious activity.\u00a0<\/p>\n At least 14 other states, including Georgia, Texas and Wyoming, already allow firearms on public college campuses, though some are limited to people with a carry license.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" To carry a gun on campus, faculty and staff will have to complete 144 hours of training. The Florida Legislature approved a bill last week that will allow faculty and staff at the state\u2019s colleges and universities to train as \u201cguardians\u201d and carry guns on campus. To become law, it just needs the approval of<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":47104,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[57],"tags":[4320,8004,23658,3649,175,21395,23378],"class_list":{"0":"post-47103","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-education","8":"tag-campus","9":"tag-carry","10":"tag-conditional","11":"tag-florida","12":"tag-law","13":"tag-legislature","14":"tag-oks"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47103","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=47103"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47103\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/47104"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=47103"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=47103"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/naijaglobalnews.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=47103"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}