TALLAHASSEE, FLA. (WSVN) - The Florida senate is set to vote on two bills involving school security.
Both involve the expansion of the Guardian Program, which authorizes only non-instructional employees to carry guns on campus.
The first bill, if passed, would allow counties to arm an additional guardian in schools.
The other bill would allow classroom teachers to carry guns in schools across Florida.
The program was put in place after the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School mass shooting in February 2018.
It has successfully cleared many hurdles such as clearing the state house and state senate committees.
A vote was scheduled to take place Wednesday but has since been delayed for sometime next week.
Meanwhile, students with the March For Our Lives movement arrived at the State Capitol building in Tallahassee to voice their concerns regarding the bill.
“That’s not in the job description. They’re not paid enough for that,” said Serena Rodrigues from Orlando. “We came all this way to protest that, and I think just showing up here today, it just shows how scared some of these legislators are to hear what we have to say.”
More student activists from Gainesville, Tampa and Orlando were bused in to help fight the bill.
“More guns in school is just likely to lead to more gun violence, so we’re here to hopefully stop that bill from happening,” said Samuel Berens from Hollywood. “I think that out of all of that, there’s going to be a lot of pressure, hopefully, on the legislature to vote against this particular bill.”
However, they may find themselves too late on the matter because lawmakers already agreed on the legislation shortly after the Parkland tragedy.
“This should not happen. They came up here for a reason. They came to say no,” said U.S. Rep. Shevrin Jones, D-Fla.
Lawmakers expect the bill to pass, but it will ultimately be up to Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis to sign it into law.
“I hope that they’re listening. I hope that they see what we’ve been fighting for,” said a student protester.
Even if state lawmakers do decide to let teachers carry guns, protesters of the bill said they will continue to fight for safer schools.
“If it does pass, it becomes a rallying cry for those who oppose it. If it doesn’t, then of course we were successful,” said Berens.
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