TAMPA, Fla. — Dozens of students from the local Tampa chapter of March for our Lives are in Tallahassee today to rally against arming school teachers. The group headed to the state capitol on a bus armed with posters, teachers, and lots of snacks for the journey.
Susana Matta-Valdivieso is among the riders. She is now a senior at Sickles High School, but was a student at Marjory Stoneman Douglas during the gunman attack.
Her family moved to Tampa afterwards.
She is making the journey to speak to lawmakers so she can protect other students.
"There's so many kids that come after us that aren't in this county whose life could be at danger because of this bill," Matta-Valdivieso said. "Mistakes are bound to happen. We have teachers that say they are ready to be armed, but one mistake could be totally deadly."
Legislators are considering a bill that would expand the current guardian program and allow classroom teachers to be trained to carry guns. Since the shooting in Parkland, Florida, lawmakers have tried to come up with ways to better protect students.
"The fact that they are voting on some type of gun control is progress, it's just not the kind that we need right now," Matta-Valdivieso added.
However, a number of local law enforcement officials have supported arming teachers.
Both Polk County Sheriff Grady Judd and Pinellas County Sheriff Bob Gualtieri now say teachers need to have the option to participate in the guardian program.
Judd argues that arming teachers could change the way future attacks play out.
"It's easy to go in there and shoot when you know no ones got a gun but you," Judd said. "But when you walk in that hallway with gun in hand, and some teacher or hall monitor steps out of a classroom and goes bap bap bap. It's a whole lot different when they are shooting back."
Sheriffs Judd and Gualtieri served on the Parkland commission, with Gualtieri as the commission's chair. Part of their job was to create safer schools and both agree that arming teachers needs to be part of that process.
Their support stems in part from how quickly these attacks happen.
"The deputy assigned to the campus at Marjory Stoneman Douglas, even if he had gone in, by the time he arrived, 22 were shot and 9 were dead," Judd explained. "In a minute and 39 seconds. We need people who can be there in seconds."
Sheriff Gualtieri wants to make sure change happens sooner rather than later.
"The question is where, the question is when," Gualtieri said. "And the ultimate question that we should be asking is what changes have we made to mitigate the harm as quickly as possible?"
The new bill would still require teachers to opt into the guardian program. Sheriff Judd has made it clear that no teacher would or should be forced to carry a firearm.
The bill to arm teachers has been temporarily postponed, according to the Florida Legislature's website.
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