Florida State University was rocked by gunfire once again when 20-year-old student Phoenix Ikner opened fire near the student union.
Two people were killed and six others injured in the tragic incident.
Lunchtime turned into chaos as students scrambled for safety—some reliving a nightmare they’d hoped was behind them.
“It sounded like construction,” one student recalled, “until people started running.”
Ikner, the son of a respected local officer, used his mother’s former service weapon—left in the family home after a police weapons upgrade.
A shotgun was also found nearby.
Authorities say he had deep ties to law enforcement, once hailed as a promising youth advisor for the sheriff’s office.
What Went Wrong?
“It’s not a surprise he had access to weapons,” admitted Sheriff Walt McNeil, underscoring a chilling reality: proximity to guns often means tragedy isn’t far behind.
President Trump called it “a shame,” doubling down on his Second Amendment stance.
But Fred Guttenberg, who lost his daughter in the 2018 Parkland school shooting, wasn’t having it.
Some Parkland survivors, now FSU students, were on campus again during this horror.
“Their second school shooting,” Guttenberg said.
Once is too many. Twice? That’s a national failure.
