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Florida school shooting sparks raft of gun proposals in NC

Responding to last month's school shooting in Florida that left 17 people dead, Democratic lawmakers in North Carolina rolled out a package of legislative proposals Monday they said would make schools in this state safer.

Posted Updated

By
Matthew Burns
, WRAL.com senior producer/politics editor, & Claudia Rupcich, WRAL reporter
RALEIGH, N.C. — Responding to last month's school shooting in Florida that left 17 people dead, Democratic lawmakers in North Carolina rolled out a package of legislative proposals Monday they said would make schools in this state safer.

Their ideas include raising the age for assault weapon purchases from 18 to 21; expanding the state's pistol permit program, which includes criminal and mental health background checks, to assault rifles; banning bump stocks; enacting gun violence protection orders; and providing enough funds to expand the number of school psychologists, counselors and resource officers working in public schools statewide.

"We realize the issue of gun violence can be fraught with controversy, but controversy should not be confused for common-sense gun reform measures," Sen. Jay Chaudhuri, D-Wake, said during a news conference in which he and other lawmakers sported orange ribbons.

Some of the proposals are in line with what Gov. Roy Cooper called for last week.

Although Chaudhuri noted that each of the proposals has bipartisan support elsewhere, citing President Donald Trump and Republican Florida Gov. Rick Scott, no North Carolina Republicans have signed on as co-sponsors of the proposed legislation.

"Our bipartisan hopes for the bill in North Carolina rest heavily on the fact that similar proposals to these have found significant bipartisan support throughout the country," said Rep. Grier Martin, D-Wake. "We find no reason to think North Carolina Republicans should be different."

A Republican-controlled House committee addressing school safety proposals is scheduled to meet for the first time on Wednesday. Democratic lawmakers said they hope the committee takes up some of their ideas.

"We need to look at offensive posture – what's causing this to happen before it happens?" said Rep. John Torbett, R-Gaston, co-chairman of the House Select Committee on School Safety.

Torbett wouldn't say whether he supports any of the ideas Democrats announced, saying he first wants to gather information presented to the committee. But he did express confidence Democrats and Republicans could agree on a plan.

"If we can do anything, it's going to have to be us. It's not going to be the next guy or somebody else. Has to be all of us working collectively to find an outcome or solution for this," he said.

If not, Chaudhuri said, he expects students to mobilize to lobby lawmakers in the coming weeks to take action, noting many have told him they no longer feel safe at school.

"I don't want to see us wait until North Carolina is in national headlines because of a school atrocity before we as a legislature come to terms with what we need to do," added Sen. Floyd McKissick, D-Durham. "It's expedient that we do it now to avoid that type of crisis. We don't need to wait for one to occur."

The Democrats dismissed the suggestion that teachers or retired military or law enforcement members carry concealed weapons at school to thwart any gunman coming in from outside, a proposal that Trump and some Republican lawmakers have backed.

"[Putting] armed folks around our children is not something we should do without significant levels of training and experience," Martin said, adding that veterans like him don't have the necessary training to make a "shoot, don't shoot decision" in an active shooter situation in a school.

McKissick said early intervention to address students' mental health needs would be a better approach, noting that the accused Florida gunman and other school shooters have been troubled current or former students.

North Carolina schools have one psychologist per 2,000 students, and one counselor for every 375 students, McKissick said, compared with national averages of one school psychologist for every 700 students and one counselor per 250 students.

"We need to invest wisely in that type of prevention," he said.

The lawmakers said they don't yet have an estimate for how much it would cost to add more mental health professionals in schools statewide.

Regarding raising the age on assault rifle purchases, Martin said he always had an assault rifle within reach while serving in Afghanistan. But, he added, "Assault weapons have no place out in society by those under the age of 21."

Likewise, machine guns should not be allowed in general circulation, said Rep. Jeff Jackson, D-Mecklenburg, but a bump stock effectively converts a semi-automatic weapon into a machine gun.

In the days immediately following the Feb. 14 shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., Rep. Marcia Morey, D-Durham, a former judge, said North Carolina should enact protection orders similar to those in domestic violence cases. The system would create a protocol for temporarily taking guns from someone deemed a threat to themselves or others.

"The number of children killed by gunfire in the United States since [the mass shooting at] Sandy Hook [Elementary School in Connecticut] in 2012 surpasses the total number of American soldiers killed overseas since 9/11," Morey said. "This is unacceptable."

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