Tallahassee Democrat by Editorial Board

March 2, 2018

We’ll concede up front that we don’t like the idea of arming teachers and other staff members to be “school marshals” in response to the murders at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School.

And we’ll admit that any public-records exemption arrives on our desks with a presumption against it.

So when you combine the two — guns in classrooms and government secrecy — we think Florida legislators are really making a bad idea worse.

With just a week left in the 2018 session, serious divisions have developed over school-safety legislation on the House and Senate second-reading calendars Friday. But aside from the big bills, there are two little-noticed proposals (SB 1940 and HB 7101) that would add an entirely unnecessary element of secrecy to the proposed arming of designated staff.

It’s important to note that nobody proposes to just have principals hand out pistols to selected teachers. There are provisions for screening, training and making sure those “marshals” are ready, willing and able to protect students and school staff in the most dreadful imaginable of emergencies. [READ MORE]