SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — The Utah Legislature has passed a bill that would allow school districts to install barricade locks on classroom doors, a vote that came after a school shooting killed 17 people in Florida.
Republican Todd Weiler said Thursday he sponsored the bill after a man who wanted to donate the locks to an elementary school was told they weren’t allowed under fire codes.
Weiler says his bill would create an exception to those codes to allow the locks designed to prevent a school shooter from entering classrooms. It does not give fund the locks or require schools to install them.
The timing of the vote was coincidental, but came a day after 19-year-old Nikolas Cruz gunned down students and staff at his former school in Parkland, Florida.