Wayne LaPierre, Executive Vice President of the National Rifle Association made a statement concerning the Sandy Hook school shooting. He said "with all the money in the federal budget, can't we afford to put a police officer in every single school?" He is not without support.
Parent Iraidis Blanco said "I think that's a great idea, to protect our kids nowadays." and parent Mike Wells agreed and said "having armed guards or armed police full time on duty at the school and I wouldn't be objected to that either, something's got to change."
There are other concerns with having an armed officer in a school though. Parent Teresa Patino said "that could be a good idea, except that probably he'd be the first one shot and then what are you gonna do?"
Some parents say security should be taken one step further and allow teachers to carry guns to protect students on campus. Leigh McCallum who is a parent, said if that was the case, "maybe they wouldn't be in the situation of hiding in closets and running from anybody who may fill the threat."
Wells added "I'd feel much better if you know, anybody who's going into a school knew that they're going to meet up with teachers that are going to have guns on them. They probably would think twice about it."
Parent Shelly Priest said it is a hard call but "having the responsibility of you know, carrying firearms, you really need to be educated. Whether you're a citizen or inside a school building. It's not something to be taken lightly."
We spoke to Jenny Gaona, an LISD teacher. She doesn't think providing guns to teachers would be the best measure to provide safety in schools. "Guns are very dangerous. And to have them in a public school, closer to kids, I think that we are looking at maybe creating more problems then we're solving."
Patino said "you don't know how good a shooter the teacher's going to be, maybe a student might grab hold of the gun. I just think that weapons don't belong in school."
We saw very mixed opinions while speaking to people about this issue. Some districts in the area do have armed officers in every school, while others including Lubbock have different security measure in place to keep children safe.
