Florida House advances bill to arm college and university faculty as protection from school shootings

An effort to expand the armed "school guardian" program to colleges and universities, following a deadly Florida State University on-campus shooting last year, took another step forward in the Florida House Tuesday.

Calling for select post-secondary employees to be trained and armed, the Education & Employment Committee unanimously backed the proposal (HB 757) that builds on changes made in the public-school system after the 2018 mass shooting at Parkland's Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

Rep. Michelle Salzman, R-Pensacola, said input for her proposal came from students, parents, faculty and staff members of state colleges and universities.

"This bill creates a prevention and a response mechanism unlike any other," Salzman said. "This will be the beacon for the nation."

The bill comes after a shooting during the 2025 legislative session, where a student killed two people and wounded five others at FSU. At the time, Salzman was taking classes in FSU's Applied American Politics and Policy master's degree program.

"I was in group text with a lot of my classmates, and we were getting live videos, you know, texted and pictures texted of where the shooter was, where they were," Salzman said. "It was a very hard moment for a lot of us. We felt very helpless sitting here in the Capitol. And those that were on campus felt helpless where they were."

Opposers of the bill think arming faculty and staff will make schools more unsafe 

Arguing against the proposal, Emily Stewart, an assistant professor of geology at FSU, recounted the confusion in the hours after last year's shooting where at one point she emerged from her classroom to several armed law enforcement officers.

"They were pointing guns at me because they, too, still believed that there might be a second shooter hiding somewhere on campus," Stewart told the committee. "What if I had stepped into the hallway holding a weapon because I wanted to protect my students? I'm a nerdy looking woman. What if I were a young man who worked for the university, who stepped into the hallway holding a weapon with three weeks of training?"

"During the shooting, law enforcement knew for a fact that the only people on campus with firearms should be other law enforcement or the active shooter. How will mixing in armed, somewhat trained civilians, affect their response?" Stewart continued.

In supporting the measure, Rep. Alex Rizo, R-Hialeah, said he thinks about missed opportunities from school safety bills that haven't advanced in the past.

"School safety is an ongoing moving target," Rizo said. "It's something that we always strive to perfect, get better, and unfortunately, we learn from our mistakes and we have to keep going."

This school safety bill will train staff to be armed in colleges and universities, as well as enforce safety in high schools 

Under Salzman's proposal, presidents of each college or university could designate employees and faculty who would be trained and able to receive a concealed-weapons license to carry guns on campus.

The bill also:

• Requires postsecondary schools to promote the use of the mobile suspicious activity reporting tool FortifyFL.
• Requires specified records related to a student's behavior, including threat assessment reports, and student psychological evaluations to be transferred when the individual moves from K-12 school to a state college or university.
• Makes it a second-degree felony for people who shoot guns within 1,000 feet of a school during school hours or activities, unless the action was in lawful defense of themselves or others.
• Requires schools to adopt an active assailant response plan, train faculty and staff to detect and respond to mental health issues, connect students with mental health services, and establish threat management teams and to establish post-incident reunification plans.

Salzman's proposal must still go before the Budget Committee before reaching the House floor.

A similar effort in the Senate (SB 896) has yet to appear before a committee.