Florida officials are taking strong actions to make sure students are safe in their schools, and President Donald Trump agrees with the actions state leaders are taking, state Attorney General Pam Bondi said Friday.
"We have also been working together because in a very short period of time, we are going to get this right," Bondi told Fox News' "America's Newsroom," pointing out that $450 million has already been allocated to the state's schools to protect their students.
The money will go toward making schools much safer places, she said, including toward infrastructure for items such as bulletproof windows, and will also help to add more school resource officers.
"We have schools that don't even have school resource officers, so now for every 1,000 students, there will be at least one officer armed on the campus," said Bondi. "Not only that, we are raising the age to buy a rifle to 21, which is consistent with buying a handgun in the state of Florida."
Bondi said she has also been working on gun violence restraining orders, to help keep people who should not have weapons from getting them. Lawmakers are also working on legislation to ban bump stocks, the devices used to allow semi-automatic weapons to function as if they were automatic.
She added that she has spoken with Trump several times, and she believes he "supports everything that is being done."
Trump has met with National Rifle Association officials this week, but Bondi said she does not believe anyone wants guns to end up in the hands of people who should not have them.
"I think the president is on the side of the American people, and I don't think that's necessarily in conflict with the NRA," she said. "I wasn't in that meeting, but I can tell you what we are doing in Florida and what I believe the president supports. Again, bump stocks, raising the age to 21 is what we're doing in in Florida, and also gun violence restraining orders.
"Taking guns out of the hands of people who should not have them because they are a danger to themselves or to others," Bondi said.
She also said part of the $450 million package will go toward mental health provisions.
"Gov. [Rick] Scott is committeed to having counselors with mental health traning in schools, working as a team, in case these warning signs are seen and not reported," said Bondi.
In the case of the Feb. 14 Parkland school shootings, accused killer Nikolas Cruz had shown several signs of mental illness and had been in treatment in the past, but was still able to purchase weapons.
Sandy Fitzgerald ✉
Sandy Fitzgerald has more than three decades in journalism and serves as a general assignment writer for Newsmax covering news, media, and politics.
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