Florida’s Office of Safe Schools Facing Personnel Shortages, Extended Safety Needs

In 2018, the State of Florida launched the Office of Safe Schools within the Department of Education to determine the best practices to ensure Florida’s schools remain safe in the years following the shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla.

The office is scheduled to sunset in July 2023, and the chairman of the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Commission in concerned about the office going forward regarding personnel and safe plans not being executed.

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As Exhaustive Parkland Report is Released, Father of Victim Seeks Accountability

Andrew Pollack, the father of a teenage girl who was killed in a school shooting in Florida last year, was appointed to the state Education Board by outgoing Gov. Rick Scott. Scott appointed Pollack to the board Friday. Pollack, whose daughter Meadow was one of 17 people killed at a Parkland, Florida, high school, Feb. 14, 2018, still needs to be confirmed to the seat by the state Senate. Pollack, 52, who became a school safety activist after the shooting, told the South Florida Sun Sentinel, “What I hope to accomplish is accountability at a local level, to hold school boards accountable and superintendents accountable.” The governor, who will be stepping down from his post next week, was elected in November to the U.S. Senate. He had said during the campaign he would serve out his term as governor, which ends Jan. 9. Nikolas Cruz, a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, has been charged with killing 17 people. Police say he used a semi-automatic AR-15 rifle. The mass shooting caused a larger debate nationwide regarding gun control measures, and also led to a local investigation. Safety commission report Pollack’s appointment to the Education Board came days after a report…

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Second Amendment Groups Vow to Fight Minnesota DFL’s Gun Control Efforts

The only thing barring Democrats from total control of Minnesota’s government is a one-seat Republican majority in the Senate, but that might not be enough to block gun-control efforts during the upcoming session. Senate Majority Leader Paul Gazelka (R-Nisswa) recently indicated that he has “some openness” on the Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) Party’s gun-control proposals, but insisted that he’s a “strong supporter of Second Amendment rights.” I have always been a strong supporter of 2nd amendment rights,my lifetime rating on guns is A+ or A. I’m open to discussing changes but it will have to pass a high bar. A few GOP want more gun restrictions,a few Dems don’t want more restrictions. We shall see what happens. — Paul Gazelka (@paulgazelka) December 18, 2018 But his December 18 tweet sparked some optimism among DFL legislators, who now believe they “have a pretty good chance this year of convincing suburban legislators who might have been reluctant in the past to vote for these bills,” Sen. Ron Latz (D-St. Louis Park) told KSTP. Latz said the DFL is looking at two specific gun-control policies, namely universal background checks in the state as well as a “red flag” law, which allows the state to temporarily…

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Correcting the Media Misinformation About Arming Teachers

armed teachers

by James D. Agresti   Misinformation can be deadly, especially when it comes to issues like school shootings. This is because it can build support for policies that increase fatalities and generate opposition to reforms that can save lives. Despite these high stakes, a wide array of media outlets have spread fictions about violence, firearms, and armed security in the wake of the armed rampage that killed 17 students and teachers at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Value of Deterrence Shortly after the Parkland massacre, President Trump said: “A ‘gun free’ school is a magnet for bad people.” “Highly trained, gun adept, teachers/coaches” would be a “great deterrent” to school shootings. “If a potential ‘sicko shooter’ knows that a school has a large number of very talented teachers (and others) who will be instantly shooting, the sicko will NEVER attack that school.” After reporting the last of these statements, the Washington Post countered, “Some criminologists have questioned that reasoning, pointing out that some people who plan to commit mass shootings are prepared to die in the process.” Likewise, the New York Timeseditorial board wrote that “many deranged mass murderers expect to die themselves during their killing sprees. It’s almost laughable to believe that the president’s…

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New Book ‘#DUPED’ Shoots Down All Of Hogg’s Rhetoric

Mark W. Smith, David Hogg

by Molly Prince   Constitutional lawyer and New York Times best-selling author Mark Smith combats David Hogg’s rhetoric in his latest book, “#Duped,” which serves as a response to the newly-minted gun-control activist and Parkland graduate’s recently released book, “#NeverAgain.” Smith exposes the left’s celebration and exploitation of students in order to advance so-called common sense gun control. “#Duped: How The Anti-Gun Lobby Exploits The Parkland School Shooting — And How Gun Owners Can Fight Back” deconstructs the progressive narrative and illustrates how advocates use children to promulgate an agenda that is so unpalatable they have failed to otherwise enact. Smith writes: From a political standpoint, children are ideal carriers of messages because they are unassailable, particularly if they have a direct connection to a tragedy. For the gun control movement, children represent a win-win-win. They are sympathetic, they are beyond reproach, and they cannot be challenged by anyone. These factors make children ripe for exploitation and explain why we see so many of them in the media today promoting gun control.” “#Duped” exposes not just why the anti-gun movement uses children, but also how. Using correspondence within the Obama administration, Smith highlights the parallels between the left’s response to both the…

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Sharp Partisan Divide over Arming Teachers to Provide Protection for Davidson County Schools

School safety - armed versus unarmed protection

In the wake of the terrible school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, many have suggested that allowing teachers who have been trained in the use of firearms, and who choose to be armed, be added as a level of protection at schools throughout the U.S. Some Tennessee schools have armed Student Resource Officers (SROs) but many others rely upon unarmed security officers or have no security on site at all. A recent Tennessee Star poll by Triton Research, which conducted an automated poll of 607 likely voters in Davidson County over a two day period April 12-13, 2018, asked respondents: Do you support or oppose allowing teachers who have a permit to carry a gun being allowed to have their gun with them at school if they wish, after they have had some additional training and certification? Davidson County self-identified “likely voters” opposed arming teachers by a 54.6% to 38.8% margin, with 6.6% undecided. However, there was a clear distinction between the views of Republican and Democrat voters on the issue. Republicans SUPPORTED allowing trained and certified teachers to be armed on school campuses by 74% to 19%. 7% were undecided. Democrats OPPOSED the idea…

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Elected Officials and Law Enforcement Ignore Existing Laws Prohibiting Political Activities and the School Walkouts They Organize

By Robert Romano   Indivisible.org is at it again, openly organizing more than 2,300 school walkouts on April 19 and April 20 to call for a “nationwide protest of our leaders’ failure to pass laws that protect us from gun violence,” urging more nationwide gun control laws in the wake of the Parkland, Fla. massacre in February. The purpose of the protest is purely about electoral politics, with the organizers saying, “if cowardly politicians fail to act, young people will show them the consequences of letting so many Americans die by voting them out in November.” Republicans have majorities in both the House and Senate, and “vote them out” appears to be specifically directed at them. But even if you wanted to say it wasn’t purely partisan, it is still is certainly about organizing voters towards a political objective. The real question is why are these political protests occurring during school hours? Why can’t they happen after school or over the weekends when they won’t be so disruptive? How many walkouts are they planning this year? Isn’t this disrupting academic studies? And why are State Attorneys General putting up with it? For example, in South Carolina, more than a dozen such school walkouts…

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Florida School Schooter Wants to Donate Inheritance to Survivors

Parkland school shooter Nikolas Cruz wants to donate his inheritance — which could run to hundreds of thousands of dollars or more — to the bereaved families and survivors of his attack, his lawyers said Wednesday. Cruz walked into Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in the south Florida city of Parkland on February 14 and opened fire at students and staff with an AR-15-style semi-automatic weapon. He stands accused of 17 counts of premeditated murder and 17 counts of attempted murder. Prosecutors are seeking the death penalty.

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Laura Ingraham, Fox News Host, Announces Vacation Amid Advertiser Boycott

Laura Ingraham will spend a week away from her nightly Fox News program after after nearly a dozen advertisers withdrew their support over her recent comments about school shooting survivor and anti-gun violence activist David Hogg. “I’ll be off next week for Easter break with my kids, but fear not, we’ve got a great lineup of guest hosts to fill in for me,” the conservative commentator said during Friday’s episode of “The Ingraham Angle.”

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Media Darling David Hogg Ducks Debate With Gun Rights Backer Kyle Kashuv

by Ginny Montalbano   Kyle Kashuv, a junior at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, emerged as the most prominent pro-Second Amendment voice among students there after the shooting at the school that left 17 dead. Kashuv, 16, who has been embraced by many conservatives, hopes to debate David Hogg, 17, a Stoneman Douglas senior. Hogg is one of the most visible liberal voices among the Parkland students in the media spotlight. The son of an FBI agent, he has been lionized by the left as he advocates more gun control. By contrast, Kashuv does not get nearly as much media exposure as Hogg or other liberal-leaning Parkland students. His appearances typically are limited to Fox News Channel among the larger media outlets. The liberal Left continue to push their radical agenda against American values. The good news is there is a solution.  Find out more >> Charlie Kirk, founder and executive director of Turning Point USA, argues that Kashuv is a worthy opponent for Hogg and other young liberals. In an email to The Daily Signal, Kirk said: Kyle is absolutely brilliant and deserves a chance to debate David Hogg in an open forum. David has insulted us gun owners enough,…

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Craig Shirley Commentary: Comforting Lies, Unwritten Rules, and the Ruination of Laura Ingraham

by Craig Shirley   Laura Ingraham might just be the most principled and assertive woman I have ever met. When she believes in her heart that the cause is just, she doesn’t back down come hell or highwater. In a field dominated by two-faced charlatans who rattle sabers at each other on television by day and drink cocktails together by night, Laura is the real deal. That passionate and opinionated voice on the radio isn’t some façade or “personality:” That’s Laura Ingraham. With all that verve and brashness, it’s easy to dismiss the individual, but her humbleness as a Catholic, her kindness as a mother of three adopted children, and her resilience as a breast cancer survivor affirms the words of St. Francis De Sales; “Nothing is so strong as gentleness. Nothing is so gentle as real strength.” If we lived in a world where the culture didn’t punish women for being conservative, Laura’s career would have earned critical acclaim long ago. While at Dartmouth College, she became the first woman to serve as Editor-in-Chief of The Dartmouth Review. She then earned her law degree from UVA, wrote speeches for the Reagan Administration, clerked for the Supreme Court, and has become one…

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Bob Corlew Commentary: Our Second Amendment Rights are Timeless

by Bob Corlew   I wish to write in response to former Supreme Court Justice John Paul Stevens’ recent Op-ed in The New York Times calling on the repeal of the Second Amendment.  In an effort to uphold the law, as a citizen myself, but as a student of the law and former law professor and state court judge, I find it troubling that a core part of Justice Stevens’ argument, and the argument of many gun control advocates that the Second Amendment should be repealed is that private gun ownership and the Second Amendment protecting it is antiquated. The role of a Judge in America still today is that of interpreting the law that has been written.  Too many judges today seek to cross the bridge from the role of interpretation of the law to that of becoming an activist in making or enforcing the law, which roles, of course, constitutionally are assigned to legislative and executive branches respectively. I understand that Mr. Stevens is now a private citizen, as I am, and in that role, he is free as a citizen to exercise his First Amendment right to speak on the issues of the Second Amendment, but I…

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Commentary: After the School Walkouts, America Has a Newly Minted Batch of Victims

Thousands of young people across this country “walked out” of their classrooms on Wednesday of this week — and of course many of those who did (some in elementary school) were far too young to know exactly what was going on. Ostensibly, the goal of the walkouts was to honor the victims of the Parkland, Florida, massacre last month and to explore new ways to prevent any others from becoming victims of violence themselves.

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Prosecutors to Seek Death Penalty for Florida School Shooter

Prosecutors in Florida said Tuesday they will seek the death penalty for Nikolas Cruz, the 19-year-old who killed 17 people last month in a shooting rampage at his former high school. “The state intends to seek the death penalty against defendant Nikolas Jacob Cruz,” the state attorney for Broward County, Michael Satz, said in a court filing on the eve of the next hearing in the case.

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Fact Check: Did Broward Sheriff’s Department Get 23 Calls Beforehand About School Shooter?

Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel said his department received only 23 calls involving shooter Nikolas Cruz or his family before the attack at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida. Verdict: False Records show that the sheriff’s department received 39 calls requesting service from authorities at Cruz’s family home since 2011, though it is not…

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Pressure Mounts for Broward Sheriff to Resign Following School Massacre

With pressure mounting on Broward County Sheriff Scott Israel to resign in the wake of this month’s Valentine’s Day shooting at a school in Florida, a Republican state lawmaker Monday added his voice to the chorus. Rep. Randy Fine [far right in photo above], appearing on “The Ingraham Angle” on Fox News, said he signed on to a letter calling for Israel’s suspension and supports a subpoena requiring him to appear in the state capital of Tallahassee to explain an apparent breakdown in which a school resource officer remained outside Parkland’s Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School while Nikolas Cruz allegedly was gunning down 17 people.

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Kentucky Congressman Proposes to Repeal ‘Gun-Free Zones Act’

Rep. Thomas Massie (R-Ky.) appeared on NBC’s “Meet the Press” on Sunday, where he made the case that since the majority of mass public shootings take place in gun-free zones like schools, the Gun-Free School Zone Act on 1990 – which makes it a crime to bring a gun on school grounds – should be repealed. “This week I talked to two survivors of Columbine. One of them, Even Todd, related to me his story of being in the library when the two shooters came in. He was the first one shot. He hid under a desk. They found his and he pleaded for his life, then he escaped from the library, ran outside, and there were two police behind a shed.  They had taken up a position and weren’t going in. “Now,  he tells me he that forgives the adults that day. The legislators, the administrators, and the police, because they couldn’t foresee what was going to happen at Columbine. “He said it’s a shame, here we are 20 years later, it’s still happening, and people are rolling out these solutions that will do nothing.” Massie continued, “He supports my bill the ‘Safe Students Act’ which would repeal the federal Gun-Free School Zone Act.”…

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Commentary: Stop Disarming Teachers When They Enter Classrooms

by Tom Mullen   In the wake of yet another mass shooting in a public school, a host of familiar recommendations have resurfaced about how to “prevent this from ever happening again.” Predictably, both sides of the aisle are looking to the government for a solution. Americans have somehow arrived at a point where they cannot conceive of human action that is not either prohibited, mandated, or, at the very least, centrally planned. Just Like Drugs The first problem is the goal. It is absurdly unrealistic to believe any set of rules is going to prevent anything from “ever happening again.” If you doubt that, I invite you to examine the war on drugs. Many decades ago, politicians decided American citizens taking heroin was never going to happen again. They banned that drug completely. You aren’t allowed to possess or sell it under any circumstances. Not after a background check. Not with a doctor’s prescription. Not at all. Ban them completely for the civilian population, they say, and mass shooters won’t be able to obtain them. Today, that drug is at the center of what the same government calls an opioid “epidemic.” Epidemic. So much for heroin overdoses “never happening again.” Yet,…

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Jeff Hartline Commentary on Florida School Shooting: Why Didn’t Law Enforcement Do Its Job?

by Jeff Hartline   In the aftermath of the Florida School Shooting last week, the handwringing continues. Why didn’t the FBI do their job? Why didn’t the adults in the shooter’s home sense a problem? What drugs was this kid on? Who was monitoring his social media? Why didn’t local Law Enforcement do its job? Law Enforcement has much to answer for, but they almost always come in after the fact and mop up the carnage. These good men and women can’t be everywhere all the time. But responsible adults in the schools can be present and ready to respond. In my last Commentary, I suggested that the simple solution to these type shootings was to immediately arm willing and capable schoolteachers and staff. I suggested rather than blame the NRA, we need to focus the blame on elected officials, school boards and teacher organizations for their refusal to eliminate schools as “soft targets” and remove the stigma of “gun-free zones” from them that make them such enticing targets for people bent on harming our most vulnerable. In Tennessee, there have been some encouraging signs. In 2015, Rep. David Byrd (R – Waynesboro), offered a bill in the Tennessee Legislature to allow…

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Dana Loesch on the CNN Town Hall About the Parkland Shooting: ‘There Were People Rushing the Stage and Screaming, ‘Burn Her”

A seething Dana Loesch – outspoken NRA spokesperson and longtime conservative activist – took the legacy media head-on in a fiery speech Thursday morning provocatively titled, “Media Love Mass Shootings.” Reflecting on her appearance at Wednesday evening’s town hall about the mass shooting, produced by CNN, Loesch said: I want to make this super obvious point. The government has proven that they cannot keep you safe. And yet, some people want all of us to disarm. You heard that town hall last night. They cheered the confiscation of firearms. And it was over 5,000 people. I had to have a security detail to get out. I wouldn’t be able to exit that if I didn’t have a private security detail. There were people rushing the stage and screaming, ‘burn her.’ And I came there to talk solutions and I still am going to continue that conversation on solutions as the NRA has been doing since before I was alive. But the government can’t keep you safe. And some people want us to give up our firearms and rely soley on the protection of the same government that has already failed us numerous times to keep us safe. And then, they also called Trump…

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