5 Years After Parkland, Florida Police Departments Still Lack Procedures on Stopping Mass Shooters
A half-decade later, the tragedy continues to fuel heated political debates over school safety, gun control and police policies
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This post is excerpted from a recent edition of our School (in)Security newsletter. Sign up to receive Mark Keierleber鈥檚 regular updates right here.
Five years since the Valentine鈥檚 Day school shooting in Parkland, Florida, which resulted in 17 deaths, the heinous attack is no longer the subject of televised prime-time town halls or congressional hearings. But the debates that came in its wake are far from settled.
The school shooting, among the deadliest in U.S. history, continues to divide the suburban Fort Lauderdale community and drive intense arguments over missed warning signs, prevention measures 鈥� and guns.
A new generation of activists: Overnight, high school student organizers of March for Our Lives became the face of the gun control movement, an overwhelming experience that .
鈥淚鈥檓 still trying to figure out what type of activism I want to engage in, since I don鈥檛 want to be passive for the rest of my life but I cannot exist in the way that I used to,鈥� 鈥嬧�媂 Gonz谩lez wrote for New York magazine last month. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 know how I鈥檓 alive after all that.鈥�
Federal action: Their nationwide protests only after another mass school shooting, this time in Uvalde, Texas, with President Joe Biden last year signing the first gun control measures in nearly three decades. During his State of the Union Address last week, Biden cited the Uvalde massacre in repeating his plea to ban assault rifles.
Armed guards, red flags: After state lawmakers mandated an armed security guard at every Florida campus post-Parkland, many police departments still , while the state鈥檚 red flag gun law 鈥� designed to remove weapons from people deemed dangerous 鈥� has experienced .
No permits necessary: Just last month, the that prevents local governments from passing more restrictive gun laws than those dictated by the state. And in Florida where “more guns” has been a prevailing policy response to the shooting, Republican lawmakers have faced pushback for for concealed weapons just weeks before the tragedy鈥檚 five-year remembrance.
In November, the shooter 鈥� a former Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School student who is now 24 鈥� was sentenced to life in prison after a jury could not unanimously agree on whether to impose the death penalty.
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