Faculty at Florida’s colleges and universities may soon be allowed to carry guns on campus under a proposed expansion of the state’s school guardian program.
Lawmakers first created the guardian program after the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, where a gunman killed 17 people, including students and staff. The program allows selected school employees or hired security personnel to undergo special training to carry firearms for school protection.
This year, state lawmakers are pushing legislation to extend the program to colleges and universities. The move follows the April 2025 shooting at Florida State University, which left two people dead.
Republican Representative Michelle Salzman, who represents Escambia County, is sponsoring the House bill. Salzman was a student at Florida State University during the shooting.
As the incident unfolded, she said classmates sent her text messages sharing where they were hiding.
“The question was, what are we going to do, what’s next?” Salzman said. “How many times is this going to happen before we make it a safer place?”
Salzman said the legislation would give higher education institutions more tools to respond to potential threats.
The Florida House passed the bill on Wednesday. A similar version in the Senate, with minor differences, is awaiting a final vote.
Under the proposal, colleges and universities would not be required to participate. If adopted, the president of each institution would have the authority to appoint school guardians.
The bills maintain Florida’s existing ban on guns on campus for anyone other than law enforcement officers and approved school guardians.
According to the Florida Department of Education, staff members seeking to become school guardians must complete at least 144 hours of training, including 132 hours focused on firearms training.
The guardian program is named in honor of three staff members who died in the Parkland shooting: Chris Hixon, Aaron Feis and Scott Beigel.
However, the proposal has faced opposition.
Democratic Senator Barbara Sharief said Debra Hixon, widow of Chris Hixon and a member of the Broward County School Board, does not support expanding the program to allow teachers and faculty to carry guns. According to Sharief, Hixon believes the program should remain limited to trained security personnel.
During a recent Senate committee hearing, several professors from Florida State University also raised concerns.
Charles McMartin, a professor in FSU’s English department, said he has survived three school shootings, including one in 2024 at the University of Arizona and another when he was in high school in Greeley, Colorado.
“Since the FSU shooting, despite the proactive measures of the university, my students and colleagues have struggled to feel secure,” McMartin said. “Introducing more guns into these environments increases the risk of accidental shootings, misidentification and escalation, not safety.”
Robin Goodman, an English professor at FSU and president of the faculty union, said campus police were able to stop last April’s shooter in about two minutes.
“After the shooting, we met with them and the police told us that if there had been other guns on the scene when they arrived, they would not have been able to neutralize the shooter that expeditiously,” Goodman said.
If the legislation becomes law, it would also make it a second-degree felony to fire a weapon within 1,000 feet of a school during school hours or a school event.
In addition, higher education institutions would be required to adopt active shooter response plans, family reunification plans, and establish behavioral assessment teams to identify and intervene when a student’s conduct may pose a safety risk.
The proposal would also require that behavioral threat assessment records of Florida high school students be transferred to their college or university if they enroll in higher education.
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