In Florida and Across the Nation, Students Demand Gun Law Reform

Youth Empower had implored students to "stop whatever you’re doing and simply walk out — into the hallway, out of your school building, whatever feels right to you."

"We are not safe at school. We are not safe in our cities and towns. Congress must take meaningful action to keep us safe and pass federal gun reform legislation that addresses this public health crisis," the group said on its website.

Protestors in South Florida called for the passage of a Gun Violence Restraining Order law via H.R. 2598 and S. 1212, bills which seek to set up a new legal framework to seize a person's firearms if he or she is found by a court official to pose a threat.

Those federal proposals bear similarities to sections of the just-passed Florida law, which creates a novel system whereby police can file a petition for a "risk protection order" to commandeer a potentially violent person's guns. If a judge or magistrate finds that the respondent poses a risk of physical injury to himself or others, the respondent's guns can be seized. In both the passed Florida law and the proposed federal law, the respondent is entitled to a hearing after confiscation, where he or she can argue for the return of the taken firearms.

President Donald Trump suggested off the cuff at an Oval Office meeting with lawmakers last month that police should have the right to take weapons away prior to court proceedings and "due process," as he put it.

The president asserted that he wanted to work on raising the minimum firearm purchasing age to 21 nationwide, though a school safety action plan subsequently released by the White House does not include an explicit age-of-purchase increase, according to a CBS report.

Republican Sen. Jeff Flake and Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein have announced that they are pursuing a bill to raise the minimum gun-buying age in the U.S. to 21. Federal law already prohibits federally licensed gun dealers from selling firearms to those under 21.

"If you can’t buy a beer, you shouldn’t be able to buy a weapon of war. While we need to do much more to reform our gun laws, ensuring teenagers can’t legally buy weapons of war is a commonsense step forward,” Feinstein said.

Flake added: "If the law says someone under the age of 21 is too young to purchase a handgun, then it ought to say they’re too young to purchase an assault weapon."

The NRA strongly opposes such measures. In its lawsuit to void Florida's raising the minimum age of purchase, the gun rights group claims that 18-year-olds are adults entitled to full Second Amendment rights.

"At 18 years of age, citizens are eligible to serve in the military — to fight and die by arms for the country. Indeed, male citizens in this age group are designated members of the militia by federal statute … and may be conscripted to bear arms on behalf of their country,” the NRA lawsuit argues.

The National Rifle Association previously filed a legal challenge to the federal gun law that prohibits licensed dealers from selling handguns to those under 21. The challenge failed in district court and later floundered on appeal in the Fifth Circuit.

The House meanwhile is scheduled to take up the STOP School Violence Act in short order.

Building on an existing grant program, the legislation "funds school security improvements and invests in early intervention and prevention programs to stop school violence before it happens," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, who introduced the bill.

Sen. Hatch noted that law enforcement and school officials had received repeated reports prior to the Stoneman Douglas massacre that the alleged shooter Nikolas Cruz, now 19, was unhinged and contemplating violent acts.

"As we saw in Parkland, having folks identify warning signs is not enough. There must be a process for acting on this information when it is brought to the attention of school administrators or law enforcement," said Hatch.

"With a requirement that states and localities contribute to the cost of these programs, my bill will authorize $75 million in Fiscal Year 2018 and $100 million each year for the following 10 years.  In total, that’s more than $1 billion to secure our schools and train our students, teachers, and law enforcement," Hatch said.

The Florida state bill passed last week for its part laid out a $400 million investment in school safety, including $162 million for school-resource officer measures, $28 million for mental health service teams to serve Florida youths and $99 million to "address specific school safety needs" including "school hardening measures such as metal detectors, bulletproof glass, steel doors and upgraded locks."

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