Utah governor signs bill allowing locks on classroom doors

FILE-In this file photo taken on Monday, July 20, 2015, Ben Richards, principal of Watkins Memorial High School, demonstrates the use of an ALICE, or Alert Lockdown Inform Counter Evade, device, in Pataskala, Ohio. New rules allowing schools to deploy barricade devices in the event of an active shooter are not consistent with federal law ensuring equal access to people with disabilities, according to a disability rights group. The Americans with Disabilities Act does not create an exception for such devices to the general requirement that locks be usable by people with disabilities, the Ohio Disability Rights Law and Policy Center said. (AP Photo/John Minchillo, File)

SALT LAKE CITY (AP) — Gov. Gary Herbert has signed into law a measure allowing Utah school districts to install barricade locks on classroom doors.

The measure Herbert signed Monday was passed by the Legislature shortly after a February a school shooting killed 17 people in Florida and touched off calls for increased gun control and school safety around the country.

The legislation had already been in the works in Utah prior to the Parkland, Florida shooting.

Republican Todd Weiler 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 funding for the locks or require schools to install them.

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