No Florida college or university has yet to opt in on a new law that allows staff to act as armed guards, a coalition of gun safety groups assert — leading them to question whether state lawmakers are out of touch on the issue.
The Legislature passed HB 757 during the 2026 regular legislative session. It includes a controversial provision allowing professors and other people appointed by a university president to carry weapons on campus. They would have to complete 144 hours of training and pass drug tests and psychological evaluations.
The proposal represented an expansion of Florida’s School Guardian Program, created for K-12 schools following the Feb. 2018, shooting massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School, in which 17 people were killed.
Angela Ferrell-Zabala, executive director of Moms Demand Action, said students, staff, and families made it clear as the bill was being debated in committee meetings that they didn’t want more guns on university campuses.
“That’s why not one school has opted into this program,” she said. “The people have spoken. Now lawmakers need to listen. This November, voters will remember who catered to the gun lobby and who stood up for the safety of our communities.”
The gun safety groups Everytown for Gun Safety and its Florida Moms Demand Action and Students Demand Action chapters have been tracking whether any schools have opted-in to the program allowing college and university staff to act as armed guards on campus. Their tracking shows not a single college institution has publicly done so.
The Phoenix reached out to representatives of a handful of college campuses around the state last week to learn whether they intended to implement the program. Only a representative from the University of South Florida replied.
“USF is currently reviewing the implementation requirements of the Guardian Program in consultation with the Florida Board of Governors and will determine how best to move forward,” said Althea Johnson, senior director for media relations on the Tampa campus.
Rep. Susan Valdés, a Republican from Hillsborough County, co-sponsored the bill. She says lawmakers approved it because of what happened at FSU last year, where a gunman killed two people and wounded five on the Tallahassee-based campus.
“It brings me comfort to a certain degree that the universities have felt that they haven’t had the need to implement it,” she said. “But if by the same token they feel in the future that they have a need, they have an avenue to be able to implement and to do what they need to do to protect our students.”
Central Florida Democratic U.S. Rep. Maxwell Frost said that, in the aftermath of the FSU shooting, students were calling on lawmakers to do more to keep their campuses safe from gun violence.
“That should be a signal that we need to take a step back and listen to what students, faculty, and campus leaders are saying they actually need to feel safe,” he said in a statement. “Our focus should be on commonsense measures that prevent gun violence before it happens, not putting more guns into classrooms.”
“Florida lawmakers claimed this program was necessary, but a month into the school year, not a single institution has chosen to adopt it. That non-participation isn’t an accident. It’s a clear sign that campus leaders recognize bringing more guns into lecture halls and libraries doesn’t make us safer,” said Emily Dornan, a volunteer with FSU Students Demand Action. “We applaud our university administrators for listening to their students and keeping this dangerous program right where it belongs: off our campuses.”
Second Amendment groups dispute the allegation that the Legislature “sold out” to the gun lobby.
“We view HB 757 as a fake campus carry bill. We demanded real campus carry and got an expansion of the Guardian program instead, which is a dog-and-pony show by squishy Republicans,” said Luis Valdes, the Florida State director of Gun Owners of America and Fuerza 2A, a pro-Second Amendment group for Hispanics.
“Why should their Second Amendment rights disappear on college campuses?” he adds. “Gun-free zones do not stop criminals. Law-abiding students, faculty, and staff must be able to defend themselves without waiting for a university’s permission.”
Other provisions in the law include:
- Makes it a second-degree felony to fire a weapon within 1,000 feet of a school.
- Promotes the use of a mobile suspicious activity reporting tool, like FortifyFL, to quickly alert law enforcement to dangerous circumstances.
- Requires a student’s threat assessment reports and psychological evaluations to be transferred from a K-12 school to their college or university upon enrollment.
- Mandates schools create family reunification plans, active assailant response plans, and threat-management teams.
- Requires schools to annually conduct security risk assessments.
- Increases training for faculty and staff to identify and respond to mental health problems.
- Further connects students with mental health services.
This story first appeared in the Florida Phoenix. Read the original here.