- Florida State University students were at the Capitol on Tuesday sharing their experiences from last week’s deadly school shooting.
- They are advocating for gun reform policies they hope will make school campuses safer.
- Hear what students are asking the Legislature for.
BROADCAST TRANSCRIPT:
Andres Perez, who serves as the chapter president of Students Demand Action at FSU, was in class the morning that a gunman killed two people and injured six others.
“Around 11:35 a.m., I was just sitting in my classroom in the Bellamy building. Attendance was taking, we started going over the week’s assigned readings. That changed around 12:01 p.m.," Perez said Tuesday at the House Minority Leader’s press conference on gun violence
"An alarm sounded throughout the building, at first, I thought it was a fire alarm. But then one of my classmates acted quickly and suddenly the screen in front of us in our classroom flashed in front of us with an [active shooter] warning."
Perez spoke, along with 3 other students.
They say they survived that day by barricading themselves in classrooms for hours while waiting for law enforcement to get them to safety.
Today, chaos ensued at Florida State University during a shooting that left at least six people wounded, one critically.
— Moms Demand Action (@MomsDemand) April 17, 2025
This is the 18th shooting on a college or university campus this year alone. pic.twitter.com/AnGaAQoC5W
It was during the wait, FSU freshman Simon Monteleone said he learned that many classrooms on campus do not lock from the inside. And he says most of the doors around FSU only open outward, making barricades less effective from the inside.
He’s calling for the Legislature to mandate that all college campuses have locks on their doors.
“I don’t ever want to enter a classroom in a situation like that again and know that the locks inside our doors are not managed by our professors, even in times of school shootings," Monteleone said.
"I ask that all of you take a second and advocate for the universities across Florida and across America that will face those types of issues, and advocate for door locks inside the university classrooms.”
FSU freshman Madalyn Propst also spoke.
She wants to see action at the federal level to help coordinate gun violence prevention efforts with local and state governments.
Propst also went on to ask the Legislature to set money aside in this year’s budget to pay for college professors to go through active shooter training and spend next legislative session, implementing safe storage legislation to help keep guns out of the hands of criminals and minors.
“Because at the end of the day, poor policy enabled this tragedy to occur," she said.
The gunman at Florida State University was under the age required to purchase a firearm in Florida but was able to access his mother’s old service weapon. She is a deputy in the Leon County sheriff’s office.
Gun advocates argue that increasing gun control reduces firearm access for law abiding citizens but doesn’t necessarily work to keep weapons out of the hands of criminals.
