State perspective:

Don’t weaken wetlands protection.

As soon as a divided Florida House on Wednesday followed the state Senate in passing a package of gun limits and school safety measures in response to the Feb. 14 massacre at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High in Parkland, calls arose from critics for Gov. Rick Scott to veto the bill.

We agree with those critics who think the bill didn’t go far enough in preventing future mass shootings in Florida like the one in Parkland or the one Orlando suffered in June 2016 at the Pulse nightclub. Both were committed by lone gunmen wielding assault-style rifles with high-capacity ammunition magazines.

Yet on balance, Scott made the right call Friday in signing Senate Bill 7026. Vetoing it would have forfeited its gains, with no politically realistic expectation that another effort would produce a stronger bill.

But Florida will be better off if Scott also uses his line-item veto authority to defund the bill’s worst provision when he is presented with the state budget.

Unprecedented progress on gun limits

For a Legislature that has done the bidding of the National Rifle Association for years by steadily loosening gun limits, the progress in the bill the governor signed Friday would have been unimaginable even a month ago.

SB 7026 raised the state’s minimum age from 18 to 21 for buying rifles, including weapons like the semiautomatic AR-15 the 19-year-old Parkland shooter legally bought and allegedly used to slaughter 14 students and three teachers. It imposed a three-day waiting period on rifle purchases, the same period currently required for handguns. It allowed law enforcement to seek a judge’s order to remove guns for at least 30 days from a mentally disturbed person deemed a danger to himself or others.

Each of these provisions was opposed by the NRA, which called for Scott to veto the bill. Republicans who voted against the bill objected to the same provisions.

Yet the bill also drew Democratic opposition because it didn’t include a ban on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines. Republicans in the Senate and House repeatedly turned aside Democratic bids to add those provisions to the bill. As we argued in an editorial earlier this week, the only feasible hope for imposing a ban in Florida would be a constitutional amendment, because polls show most state voters would support one.

A risky program to arm school staff

Many Democrats also objected to the bill’s program to allow school districts to screen and train school staff to carry concealed weapons on campus. Under pressure from Democrats, Republicans ruled out most but not all teachers from the program. Even so, the idea of anyone other than experienced law-enforcement officers packing heat and responding amid the chaos of a school shooting is a recipe for catastrophe.

The risk in the program is only partly mitigated by the fact that it’s voluntary for school districts. Leaders in Orange and Seminole have said they won’t participate, but other districts have expressed interest.

Scott has consistently said he opposes arming teachers. If he’s sincere, he’ll use his line-item veto authority to eliminate the $67 million for the program in the state budget, which the Legislature is expected to pass Sunday.

Scott met with families of the students and teachers slain in Parkland before signing the bill. Members of each of those families had urged legislators to pass it.

As Andrew Pollack, whose 17-year-old daughter, Meadow, was murdered in Parkland, declared after the House vote: “More needs to be done, and it’s important for the country to unite in the same way the 17 families united in support of this bill.” We hope Scott signing SB 7026 marks just a starting point for further steps in Tallahassee — or better yet, in Washington, D.C. — to prevent more tragedies like the ones at Parkland and Pulse.