Nearly a month after 17 people were killed in a horrific Florida school shooting, the state’s governor, Rick Scott, signed a gun safety bill Friday that raised the minimum age to buy a gun but also allows some teachers to be armed.
Governor Rick Scott, a Republican and staunch ally of the gun lobby, enacted the bill.
The legislation will raise the age to buy rifles to 21 from 18 and also require a three-day waiting period for long guns, but also allows the training and arming of school staff.
It does not ban semi-automatic rifles like the one used in the 14 February massacre in Parkland.
The bill also introduces a three-day waiting period on all gun sales and a ban on bump stocks, a device that enables semi-automatic rifles to fire hundreds of rounds a minute.
The teacher-arming provision would allow school districts that don’t want to participate to opt out. Under the guardian program, teachers and school employees who underwent law enforcement training would be able to carry handguns, provided that their districts opted in.
The NRA (national Rifle Association) filed its lawsuit on Friday just an hour after the bill was signed by the governor. The NRA filed the law suit despite the valentines day massacre, as families are still trying to rebuild from the tragic loss of 17 students.
The complaint suggests the law violates the second amendment of the US constitution, which governs the right to bear arms.
It also argues the bill breaches the 14th amendment’s equal protection clause by banning law-abiding citizens between 18-21 from buying guns and furthermore restricts females who are seemingly less likely to go on a shooting rampage.
This comes only a month after 17 people were killed in a horrific Florida school shooting, when Nikolas Cruz, was 19 years old used an AR-15 rifle to carry out his rampage.
The teacher-arming provision would allow school districts that don’t want to participate to opt out. Under the guardian program, teachers and school employees who underwent law enforcement training would be able to carry handguns, provided that their districts opted in.
The Republican-controlled legislature in the state of Florida, where the NRA wields considerable influence, is seen as a testament to the liberal gun control laws in the United states and the influence they have in the political hemisphere.
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