Legislation passed during this year’s legislative session would look to improve campus emergency response and security across Florida to prevent mass shooting events.
But one element of the bill that would allow universities to opt into a program allowing designated faculty and staff to carry firearms on campus has some Florida State University students concerned.
This year’s school safety act does a lot. It requires higher education institutions to promote the use of a suspicious activity reporting tool, requires k-12 schools to send psychological evaluations to the college system, and makes colleges and universities adopt assailant response plans and update security infrastructure.
Pensacola Republican Senator Don Gaetz said the FSU shooting last year was a direct inspiration for the legislation he sponsored.
“What all of us thought were safe spaces for study and reflection and learning were becoming targets for absolutely crazy, criminal people who are trying to disrupt and take lives,” he said.
But the most talked about part of the bill was the expansion of the state’s guardian program to higher education. It allows universities to opt in to allowing certain faculty and staff to carry firearms on campus. A similar program is already in effect at Florida’s K-12 schools. It was approved in 2018 as part of a larger package around the shooting that year at Marjorie Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland.
Some Democratic lawmakers, like Parkland Representative Christine Hunschofsky, expressed concern that it would put those people in harm’s way and could create confusion in emergencies as the bill was going through the committee process.
“The question becomes, when another police officer, maybe from the city or the area, comes on campus, do they know who the good guy is with the gun, and do they know who the bad guy is with the gun?” she said.
But Gaetz called the Guardian program the smallest piece of the broader package. To him, the campus-hardening aspects and mental health provisions are most important because most of Florida’s colleges and universities have open designs.
“We didn't build our universities and our colleges as fortresses, and we don't want to consider them as fortresses, but we do want to make sure that we can take and do take precautions to make sure that we do what requires common sense, making sure doors lock, making sure people can't get to two rooftops, and making sure that the people who are there on the campuses who have responsibility, have a plan, that they are trained, that we are identifying people who might be a threat and providing intervention before things happen,” he said.
The bill has not yet been signed or vetoed, and how much funding it will receive is tied up in current budget talks. If it does become law, the decision on whether to utilize the Guardian program will be up to each university individually.
A year after the shooting on FSU’s campus, some students are concerned about the idea of the program being adopted by the university.
Sarah Landfair is a freshman Engineering student at Florida State University. She’s concerned more guns on campus could cause more incidents, like having them be taken away from a teacher.
“I understand, like, the aspect of it being used for protection in a good way. But I also can see how it could backfire,” she said.
Ava Osborne, another student, thinks knowing more guns are around could scare students.
“Especially here, when so many people have been affected by the use of a firearm, it's going to scare people more than it's going to help people feel safe,” she said.
Avery Harrell, a junior political science major, said she thinks more guns isn’t the answer.
“I understand their point of being able to protect the students, but a better way to protect the students from guns is to put laws in place that prevent students from getting guns,” she said.
Most of the people who agreed to be interviewed were anti-gun, but dozens of students declined to comment about it.
College students tend to have views about guns that are more restrictive. A 2024 Gallup poll found 4 in 5 current or prospective college students care about their school’s gun policies.
Most of those that care wanted tough restrictions that made it hard to have guns on campus or banned them outright. The poll did not particularly discuss arrangements like the guardian program, where designated employees can have firearms.