FLORIDA — It's been four years, three months, one week and three days since 17 teachers and students were murdered and 17 others injured at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, but for the parents of those young victims, Tuesday's incident in Texas is like reliving a nightmare. 

“It’s just absolutely horrible,” said Max Schachter who’s son Alex was murdered in the Parkland shooting, “It’s a failure on all of our parts. It’s a failure of Congress’ part not to act on legislation to make schools safer. And it’s the complacency that’s come over the entire country after COVID.”

Ryan Petty also lost his daughter Alaina in Parkland in 2018. He knows what those parents in Texas are going through.

“Those of us that have experienced this tragedy have been trying to do everything that we can to prevent these things from happening,” Petty said. “If I were there I’d just wrap my arms around them and just share the pain with them.” 

Other parents took to Twitter to express their condolences. 

They also know that out of their loss, they found ways to make schools in Florida safer.

“Now we have an armed school safety officer on every K-12 campus," Schachter said. “We have threat assessment teams in every school. Gov. DeSantis just passed the school safety bill. The latest one, we've passed multiple of those, where we now have a mental health coordinator in charge of mental health for the district.”

Schachter has been talking with members of Congress to pass legislation that would make schools safer nationwide.

“It uses proven methods that the Secret Service uses to protect the President," Schachter said, “They use behavioral threat assessments to protect members of Congress and our kids deserve nothing less to be protected.”

Petty added, “It doesn’t mean they’re perfect. It doesn’t mean we can’t experience another tragedy, but our schools in Florida are so much safer than they were in 2018 and that’s the best gift we can give to honor our daughter.”