© Reuters. U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris speaks throughout a go to to the St. Paul Well being Heart, a clinic that performs abortions, in St. Paul, Minnesota, U.S., March 14, 2024. REUTERS/Nicole Neri/File photograph
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By Trevor Hunnicutt
FORT LAUDERDALE, Florida (Reuters) – U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris on Saturday will push states to strengthen legal guidelines that may strip firearms from high-risk individuals as she visits the Parkland, Florida, highschool the place a gunman killed 17 individuals in 2018.
Harris is touring to fulfill with households of the victims and see Marjory Stoneman Douglas Excessive Faculty, the place the murders occurred, in response to a White Home official.
“Pink flag” legal guidelines enable courts to subject “excessive threat safety orders” eradicating firearms from people thought-about vulnerable to harming themselves or others.
Six U.S. states each have such legal guidelines and are tapping $750 million out there underneath the 2022 Bipartisan Safer Communities Act to implement disaster intervention applications, the official stated.
As a part of her go to, Harris will name for 29 different states that haven’t any such legal guidelines to move them and encourage 15 extra states which have the legal guidelines to start out utilizing the out there federal funds.
Florida accredited a crimson flag regulation after the 2018 taking pictures however has not used the federal funding, in response to the official.
The Parkland shooter, a former scholar there who was 19 on the time, had been seen for psychological well being points. He pleaded responsible and was sentenced to life in jail.
The constructing the place the taking pictures happened is scheduled to be demolished this 12 months. It has remained largely unaltered for the reason that 2018 taking pictures, with bloodstains and bullet holes nonetheless seen.
Some advocates regard the crimson flag legal guidelines as violating their constitutional proper to bear arms, whereas gun security advocates level to some research displaying they will forestall some deaths.
President Joe Biden has made gun violence a key subject in his 2024 reelection bid and tapped Harris, a former prosecutor, to supervise the hassle. Each have traveled throughout the nation to fulfill with individuals whose households died in mass shootings.
The US has the best stage of firearm homicides amongst high-income nations with populations over 10 million, in response to the Institute for Well being Metrics and Analysis on the College of Washington Faculty of Drugs.
Biden, a Democrat, needs Congress to approve a brand new assault weapons ban and to require background checks for all U.S. gun gross sales. Every measure will likely be tough to move in a divided Congress. Republican candidate Donald Trump has beforehand supported crimson flag legal guidelines however opposed broader measures favored by Biden.
