Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey said Thursday he will back laws designed to take guns from people who are a threat — precisely what is in a bill that Tucson Democratic Rep. Randy Friese could not even get heard in the Republican-controlled Legislature.

In a Twitter post, the Gov. Ducey specifically mentioned Nikolas Cruz, the teen who who killed 17 students at Marjory Stoneman High school in Florida a month ago.

"In the overwhelming majority of the deadliest mass shootings in the last 20 years, the shooter exhibited obvious signs of being a threat,'' Ducey wrote. "Why not have laws and a process to restrict these individuals form possessing or obtaining guns?''

The governor, in a series of posts, said he has been meeting with various groups on the issue of school safety. Among the things Ducey said he likes are increased mental and behavioral health resources at schools and cracking down on people who are not entitled to have weapons.

Ducey also said he supports "enhanced background checks.''

But Gov. Ducey has been openly cool to legislation to actually closing the "gun show loophole'' that entitles people to sell weapons at such events without having to determine if the buyer is legally entitled to own a firearm, checks required when the weapon is sold by a federally licensed gun dealer. He even signed legislation last year to prohibit any mandatory background checks on person-to-person sales sales.

But Ducey also said he believes in "respecting Second Amendment rights of law-abiding Americans'' while enforcing gun laws already on the books.

It could be the proposal that appears to be modeled after Friese's House Bill 2140, however, that could be the biggest change in philosophy for Ducey who in more than three years in office has signed various laws designed to protect the rights of gun owners.