Posted on 04/04/2002 8:23:46 AM PST by tarawa
Districts could set weapons rules
Lee schools to keep zero-tolerance policy
By Dara Kam, The News-Press Tallahassee Bureau & Sharon Turco, sturco@news-press.com
Tallahassee -- School students could be allowed to bring guns to school, locked in their cars, under the rewrite of the rules governing Florida's schools.
Lee school board members, however, said they have no plans to change the district's zero-tolerance policy banning weapons on campuses.
The rewrite cements a loophole that gives school districts the ability to override state and federal zero-tolerance policies barring weapons from school campuses.
State Sen. Burt Saunders, R-Naples, voted to allow school boards to override the zero-tolerance policy.
The proposal is part of an 1,800-page bill, already endorsed by Gov. Jeb Bush, that is being negotiated today by House and Senate conference committee members.
Local school and law enforcement officials were outraged that the Legislature would consider allowing students to bring guns to school -- even if they don't bring them inside.
"Florida's exemption is surprising," said Mike Rivas of the National School Safety Center in California. Many other states are using federal law to expand their zero-tolerance policies.
"They're putting everything under it like fighting or cursing or tweezers or saw blades or anything. It's like using a shotgun to kill a fly. But it was geared toward this idea of you will not bring a gun on campus."
The bill's House sponsor said the new language simply puts control over guns on campus into the hands of school boards. Rep. Jerry Melvin, R-Fort Walton Beach, shrugged off objections by teachers and school officials.
"The local school boards have the right to set policy," Melvin said. "If teachers have a concern they should go to the school board. Don't come crying to the Legislature."
Jane Kuckel, Lee school board president, said allowing students to keep guns in their cars goes against what the district has pledged to parents.
"First and foremost parents expect students are in a safe environment when they are at school," Kuckel said. "A locked car can easily be broken into."
Kuckel also fears as absurd as the amendment sounds, it could slip through the Legislature.
"Legislators tend to look at the main point of the bill, and are not aware of its specifics or implications," she added.
While Escambia County School Superintendent Jim Paul said the school gun loophole has supporters in rural North Florida where students might go hunting before or after class, he didn't see the need to bring the weapons onto campus. "For goodness sake, go home before you go out hunting. It's ridiculous," he said.
Fort Myers Police Chief Hilton Daniels said guns don't belong on campus.
"I do not support weapons of any kind on school grounds," Daniels said. "Our kids are there to learn."
Melvin didn't give up any ground. "Lock your damn car if you don't want someone to steal your gun," the legislator said.
State and federal aw now mandates a zero-tolerance drugs and weapons policy that results in an automatic one-year expulsion for students who bring the contraband to school, to school functions or on school transportation. But an inconsistency in state law also gives school boards permission to waive the rule and allow students older than 18 to bring guns to schools if they keep them locked in their cars.
All of Florida's 67 school districts have zero-tolerance policies that result in automatic expulsion for at least one year, said the executive director of the Florida School Boards Association.
"It is not consistent with what the Legislature has said in the past on this issue," said Wayne Blanton. "I would highly recommend to all school boards that they not change their policy."
Proponents of the school code rewrite -- including Lt. Gov. Frank Brogan -- backed away from the revision, saying it was a technical change proposed by the Department of Education to bring Florida into compliance with a new federal law. But federal law mandates the zero-tolerance policy, meaning districts could lose federal funds if guns are allowed on campus.
"I've never heard of a public school in Florida that allows guns on campus as part of a shooting class or even show and tell," said Vern Pickup-Crawford, a lobbyist for Palm Beach County schools.
Marion Hammer, a lobbyist for the National Rifle Association, said the exemption won't have any impact on kids bent on vengeance.
"Whatever language they put into this isn't going to have one ounce of difference with these punks that are going to do whatever they want to do," said Hammer, who also represents the Unified Sportsmen of Florida.
"If you've got a kid that wants to go shoot up his school, do you think a little bit of language in a school code rewrite bill is going to make any bit of difference to him?"
Even students believe allowing guns on campus would be a mistake.
Todd Borden, 17, who attends Barron Collier High School in Naples, agreed that fights could end up deadly.
"There is no reason to bring a gun to school," Borden said. "A car is not a place for a gun. Even at home you need to keep a gun locked in a safe."
Yep. Must be a pretty safe place if locked cars are easily broken into and it happens often enough that it dictates policy for the law-abiding.
The knee-jerk leftist dolts have no minds, and you hit it on the head. How does the school have a "safe environment" right now if kids have the opportunity to roam parking lots and break into cars?
And it does not even address the fact that an 18 year old can not only be expelled and arested for having a gun, but even if it was a single bullet or shell, and I imagine it would apply even if it was only a casing. Hell, they would probably get expelled if it was an empty gun case or holster, or even a gun cleaning kit.
Hm. He obviously doesn't commute 100 miles a day on back roads. He obviously isn't a woman.
That gun locked in a safe at home won't help me on the road.
It's the education these nitwits are giving kids that makes so many of them a danger to society. That, and the fact that their mamas run their daddies off, or they just don't have daddies to begin with.
But, hey, young things .... just do what you feel, y'know? "It's all good."
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