TALLAHASSEE, Fla. — As Florida State University marks one year since the 2025 campus shooting that killed two people near the student union, Florida lawmakers are sending Gov. Ron DeSantis a school safety bill that is already dividing survivors, students and supporters.
The measure, HB 757, cleared the Legislature this session and is framed by supporters as an effort to prevent another campus attack.
WATCH: FSU shooting anniversary renews focus on Florida campus safety bill awaiting governor’s signature
The bill would require colleges and universities to adopt active assailant plans, conduct annual campus security assessments and create family reunification plans. It also would create a new felony for firing a gun within 1,000 feet of a school during classes or school events.
Its most controversial provision would allow certain trained employees at colleges and universities to serve as armed guardians on campus.
State Rep. Michelle Salzman, a Republican from Cantonment who sponsored the bill, said lawmakers had to respond after the FSU shooting.
“We have to come up with a plan,” Salzman said during a March interview. “We have to do this better. We can’t let this happen again.”
Salzman argued that gun-free campuses can become targets.
“These gun-free zones are one of the reasons why these campuses are targets,” she said. “So eliminating the gun-free zone in itself, I think, will eliminate a lot of the risk that we currently had.”
But the proposal has drawn pushback from Democrats and from some FSU students who lived through the shooting.
Madalyn Propst, an FSU sophomore who was close enough to hear the gunfire, said the anniversary remained emotionally difficult as students gathered Friday to remember those killed and injured.
“It gets more manageable as time goes on, today is just a lot,” Propst said.
In the months after the shooting, Propst and other students pushed for changes they hoped would help prevent another attack. Now, she said, she worries the bill’s campus guardian provision is moving in the wrong direction.
“Allowing for faculty and staff to have guns on campus doesn't prevent an issue,” Propst said. “It allows panic to take over.”
If DeSantis signs the bill, many of its provisions would take effect immediately.
The debate over HB 757 unfolded as Florida Republicans also pursued broader changes to the state’s post-Parkland gun laws this year, including proposals to roll back red flag laws and lower the minimum age to buy firearms. Neither proposal made it through the Legislature, though the issue could resurface next year under new legislative leadership and a new governor.
Meanwhile at FSU, the anniversary was centered less on policy than on remembrance — with flowers, messages of mourning and strength, and students reflecting on what was lost and what they hope never happens again.
“FSU is an amazing, amazing community,” Propst said. “It is like it feels like a family on campus.”
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