Texas governor’s school safety talks to tackle gun control

“And one key component of that is ensuring that parents … store guns responsibly”.

Texas Governor Greg Abbott met Tuesday with experts and politicians to discuss how to prevent school shootings, five days after a teenage gunman killed 10 people at a high school in the southern USA state.

Teens experience high rates of abuse: According to advocacy organization Loveisrespect, one in three adolescents experience verbal, emotional, sexual, or physical abuse from a dating partner, and more than 1.5 million high school students suffer physical abuse from an intimate partner every year. But experts say stricter gun rules, a solution favored by most Democrats, don’t have a good chance of getting to the governor’s desk.

The governor said he wants to explore ways to “harden” public schools against potential attacks. Like Tuesday’s meeting, Wednesday looks to have a heavy discussion on tracking student mental health. Santa Fe High School is the site of the 22nd school shooting to take place in the United States this year.

A Texas school district says it will be holding a graduation ceremony as planned for the high school where 10 people were killed during a deadly shooting last week.

Abbott, a Republican, has vowed that any changes to state laws would “protect Second Amendment rights”.

Megan McGuire is a junior at Santa Fe High and was at school on the day of the shooting.

“We teach officers if you need to go to the restroom, if you want to go eat your lunch, go sit in our cafeteria with the kids and spend the time there”, Skrocki said. Fisher repeatedly told him that she wasn’t interested in going out with him, but that did not stop the suspect from approaching her.

The students who survived the Parkland shooting weren’t too young that they could be dismissed as being told what to say by adults (although that happened) or too old that they could be accused of having a political agenda (although that happened too).

In a phone interview with Greece’s Antenna TV, Antonios Pagourtzis said he wished he could have stopped Friday’s killings at Santa Fe High School.

Four minutes after Pagourtzis started shooting, police entered the school’s hallway and exchanged gunfire with him while he remained in a classroom, allowing the rest of the school to be evacuated, Trochesset said.

Under Texas law, prosecutors can file a misdemeanor charge against a gun owner who failed to secure a weapon and a child under 17 gains access to a “readily dischargeable” firearm from that person’s property.

But Texas is not expected to follow Florida’s path in enacting new gun restrictions.

Abbott also asked the Hays County Sheriff’s Office to compare notes in its emergency response guide with the Texas School Safety Center.

As one reads about school shootings such as the latest incident in Santa Fe, Texas, one often senses a feeling of social anxiety on the part of perpetrator.

In 2013, Texas passed a statute that allows juveniles convicted of capital murder to be sentenced to life in prison with an option for parole after 40 years, Amanda Marzullo, executive director of Texas Defender Services, told Fox News.