The Sun Sentinel echoed on it way the usual party line:

Democrats argued that arming teachers will have unintended consequences, such as teachers using excessive force or mishandling their guns.

Educators should be focused on teaching — not having to provide security at schools, said Sen. Gary Farmer, D-Fort Lauderdale. “We should be giving our teachers tools of mass instruction — not arming with tools of mass destruction,” he said.

Senate Democrats lose fight to remove arming-teachers provision from school safety bill

I was watching the livestreaming of the arguments in one of the commissions and I was struck at how easy it come to the mouths of those against the bill the principle that teachers who are allegedly trained professionals, will suddenly become bumbling morons and hyper violent individuals the moment they decide to carry a sidearm in class.  As a teacher, and not matter if I favor or not the Guardian Program, I’d be insulted as hell to be characterized like that. And parents? You call the teachers irresponsible and unsafe, but yet you have no problem ditching the fruit of your loins in schools for half a day under their care? Isn’t that a contradiction?

Democrats succeeded in adding new requirements that districts notify law enforcement and the state’s Office of Safe Schools if a school safety officer fires a weapon or faces disciplinary action. Statistics on incidents involving school safety officers would be required to be published annually.

I spoke of this one before and I do believe five or ten years down the road, they will be sorry they added this to the bill. They added that to the Concealed Weapon License reports and the only thing it has done was to prove every Gun Control activist a liar.

Every Republican in the Senate backed the arming-teachers provision with the exception of Sen. Anitere Flores of Miami who skipped the vote. She voted against it in committee.

I guess faced between having to follow party line or follow the directives of Bloomberg’s  Moms, she chose to hide herself somewhere in the building or develop the vapors or something. I am sure as hell not going to forget her as she gets term-limited next year if I am not mistaken.

Sen. Perry Thurston, D-Fort Lauderdale, said he’ll keep fighting, but he’s not optimistic Republicans will budge.

“They locked down on their position,” he said.

I believe it was the election that was the “come to Jesus” moment for the Republicans. The loss of the Agriculture Department to a pothead with the support of Moms Demand and all the manual recounts, specially for the Senate seat had to be a shocker. I know I was not the only one pissed at them when I made it clear Scott was not getting my vote.

The election went from “It is OK to ignore Broward and their shenanigans” to “Oh crap! Why is this so close? What group of voters did we lose?”

You guys lost the faithful Gun Owning vote. Not all of it, but enough to make you sweat. At least that is my take.

I am not claiming victory yet on this bill. But I may engage in celebratory dancing sometime in the next days.