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Shaquille O’Neal doesn’t think the answer to gun violence in schools is more regulation but rather adding more police officers.
The retired NBA star, who was sworn in as a reserve police officer for the city of Doral, Florida, in 2015, believes that more police officers in schools and cities are the answers, not more gun control laws, according to the Daily Mail.
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O’Neal made the comments during an interview on the ‘Curtis and Cosby’ show on WABC Radio after being asked about last month’s mass shooting at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida that left 17 dead.
“You put [officers] in front of the schools, you put ’em behind the schools, you put ’em inside the schools, and we need to pass information,” O’Neal stated during the interview.
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Shaquille O’Neal also expressed serious doubt that new gun control laws and even outright bans would be an effective way to combat gun violence.
“It’s not like, if you say, ‘OK, these weapons are banned,’ people are gonna go, ‘Oh man, let me turn it in.’ That’s definitely not going to happen,” Shaquille O’Neal stated.
The comments from Shaquille O’Neal came on the same day that thousands of students all across the country staged mass walkouts to protest gun violence.
Florida takes action
According to CNN, the National Rifle Association is suing the state of Florida after Gov. Rick Scott signed Senate Bill 7026 into law, making this the first gun control legislation since the deadly shooting in Parkland.
Seventeen students and administrators were killed at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School when 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz opened fire with a semi-automatic military-style rifle.
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“This bill punishes law-abiding gun owners for the criminal acts of a deranged individual,” executive director of the NRA Institute for Legislative Action Chris W. Cox told CNN. “Securing our schools and protecting the constitutional rights of Americans are not mutually exclusive.”
The major factors of this law include: raising the age to bare a firearm from 18 to 21, banning the purchase of bump fire stocks, and it giving police officers more latitude to confiscate weapons and gun materials from people that are ruled mentally unstable. The law will also give more funding to schools for armed officers.