WATCH: Florida Gov. Rick Scott signs the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act, which raises the age to buy firearms to 21 and imposes a three-day waiting period for most gun purchases.
Our previous report with details on the bill → https://t.co/iWbR7VTeGW pic.twitter.com/UCz1mIXqln
— NBC News (@NBCNews) March 9, 2018
Florida Governor Rick Scott drew a lot of criticism in the summer of 2016 when, shortly after the deadly shooting at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando, he declared, “The 2nd Amendment didn’t kill anybody” and tried to shift the blame to ISIS and “radical Islam.” Following the mass shooting at Stoneman Douglas High School in February (carried out by a shooter with ties to white supremacy movements), Gov. Scott has changed his tune by calling for gun control measures, which the state legislature quickly passed in defiance of the NRA.
On Friday, surrounded by families of Parkland victims, Scott signed the legislation, dubbed the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Public Safety Act, into law. While it has some gun control aspects, it also allows for some teachers to be armed. That aspect, named the Coach Aaron Feis Guardian Program after the coach who shielded students and died in the shooting, only goes into effect if the local school district and sheriff’s department agree that an individual teacher should be armed.
Depending on who you ask, the legislation either went too far or not far enough. Under the new law, the age to purchase a firearm was raised to 21, sales and possession of bump stocks were banned, and law enforcement was given more power to seize guns and ammunition from those deemed mentally unfit.