People affected by Florida shootings react to news of school shooting in Texas
ORLANDO, Fla. - The tragedy in Uvalde, Texas makes all parents think about school safety.
Some precautions were already in place for the last few days of school in districts like Seminole County and Polk County. They're increasing security and are not allowing backpacks in school.
Many are pushing for laws to change across the country.
"Sadly, hearing the news brings you right back to the day that we found out that our beautiful 14-year-old daughter was murdered in her school," said Tony Montalto, who lost his daughter Gina in the Parkland school shooting. "And immediately we feel for the families who have had their children and their loved ones murdered at school."
Montalto also leads the group, Stand with Parkland, which has pushed for change here in Florida.
He would like to see things like red-flag laws passed across the country.
Red-flag laws take guns away from people who are deemed a threat.
"What we need to see is people across the country start to come together," Montalto said. "If there’s one thing that should be able to bring us together, it’s wanting to protect our children and teachers at school. We have to stop looking at the extremes on the far left and the far right and start being strong and powerful voices in the middle."
People who lost loved ones in the Pulse Nightclub shooting are also feeling the pain again, seeing the news of Uvalde.
Brandon Wolf, who survived that shooting, asks what it will take to end this kind of violence.
"There’s nothing I can say that will ever ease the kind of horror they’re going to feel, and I get emotional, because again, these are children and I know what it felt like for my best friend’s parents to send them off into the world, then one day they’re just gone," Wolf said.
Wolf says he's also pushing for changes to gun laws and for finding ways to keep guns away from dangerous people.