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Modest School Safety Measures Making Way Through California Legislature

Publication: EdSource

Following the February massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Fla., California legislators, like their counterparts around the nation, introduced a number of bills to address school safety.

Two bills — one by introduced by a GOP lawmaker calling for armed police officers on every school campus and another mandating mental health professionals in schools — have already died in the Legislature. But other more modest measures, having to do with locks on classroom doors, gun violence restraining orders and school safety plans, are still alive.

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Authored by Assemblyman Phil Ting, D-San Francisco, AB 2888 amends the state’s existing “red flag” law to enable an employer, a co-worker, or an employee of a high school or college to request the courts to issue a gun violence restraining order from a person owning, purchasing, possessing, or receiving a firearm or ammunition.

It is supported by the California chapters of the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, Coalition Against Gun Violence, and the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence. It is opposed by the American Civil Liberties Union and the Firearms Policy Coalition. The legislative analysis did not include a cost for the bill.