Governor Rick Scott ended a firestorm of speculation about whether he would sign the bill, which faced fierce opposition from the NRA.
Florida governor Rick Scott signed a comprehensive gun-control and school-safety bill Friday in response to the Parkland, Fla. massacre that claimed 17 lives on Valentine’s Day.
The bill raises the minimum age to purchase a rifle in Florida from 18 to 21, extends to long guns a three-day waiting period formerly reserved for handguns, and bans bump stocks, which, when affixed to semi-automatic weapons, increase their rate of fire so it mimics that of fully automatic firearms.
The legislation, which narrowly passed the state legislature, also includes $67 million in funding for a so-called Guardian program that empowers teachers and other school personnel to carry firearms, provided they receive training from law-enforcement officers. The bill also allocates extra funding for mental-health programs and a gun-violence-prevention hotline.
“I called on the Legislature to give me a bill that will allow us to make our schools far safer, allowing for a much greater law-enforcement presence, and for hardening our school buildings,” Scott said upon signing the bill. “This bill does that.”
It marks the first time that Scott has broken from the National Rifle Association (NRA), which vigorously opposed the bill. Much speculation had centered on the question of whether Scott, who is widely expected to challenge Democratic incumbent Bill Nelson in this year’s U.S. Senate race in Florida, would risk angering the politically influential NRA by signing the legislation. Well known Florida NRA lobbyist Marion Hammer had called the bill “a display of bullying and coercion,” in a Thursday statement.
In response to the news, student activists from Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where the massacre took place, called the legislation a “baby-step,” and continued to advocate stricter gun-control measures.