Florida voters opposed President Trump’s idea of allowing qualified teachers and other school staffers to carry concealed weapons by 56 percent to 40 percent, a new poll said Wednesday.
Parents with school-age kids in public schools also opposed the plan, but by a slightly closer margin, 53 percent to 43 percent, according to the Quinnipiac University survey.
But 51 percent said “increased security at school entrances” would do more to reduce gun violence in schools — like the Feb. 14 massacre at a high school in Parkland, Florida, that left 17 people dead — compared to 32 percent who say stricter gun laws would work better and 12 percent who say armed teachers would do more to keep schools safe, the poll said.
The survey also found broad support for restrictions on military-style assault weapons.
Florida voters supported by 62 percent to 33 percent a nationwide ban on the sale of “assault weapons.”
In a separate question with different wording, voters backed by 53 percent to 42 percent a nationwide ban on the sale of all “semi automatic rifles.”
“The notion that we are bitterly divided on political matters — the case for past decades — has found an exception to that rule. Florida voters, be they young or old, white or black, man or woman, have a common enemy,” said Peter A. Brown, assistant director of the poll.
“Floridians are strongly united that more needs to be done to reign in guns, especially the type of gun used this month to massacre 17 people in Parkland.”
The survey also showed that 96 percent of Floridians favor background checks for all gun buyers as opposed to just 3 percent who do not.
Sunshine State residents were also dissatisfied with the way Trump responded to the shooting, disapproving by 50 percent to 39 percent.
Trump responded in part to the bloodbath, — in which a 19-year-old former student at Stoneman Douglas High School fatally shot 14 students and three staffers with an AR-15 assault rifle — by proposing that qualified teachers and staffers be allowed to carry concealed weapons in school.