TEXAS, USA — During an interview on Fox News, Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton called for more staff at schools to be trained and armed with weapons.
This comment comes after at least 21 people were killed Tuesday in what is now considered the deadliest school shooting in Texas history. It happened at an elementary school in Uvalde, which is about four hours away from Houston.
Nineteen of the victims were students. What we do know is that Robb Elementary School has nearly 600 students in the second, third and fourth grades. Typically, students in those grades are between 6 and 10 years old.
"We need to continue to try to focus on preventing this," Paxton said during the interview. "We can't stop bad people from doing bad things. They're going to violate murder laws. They're not going to follow gun laws. I've never understood that argument."
Paxton said that leaders need to "harden these schools" by creating access points that are difficult for people wanting to cause this type of harm to get through.
This would involve potentially arming, preparing and training some teachers and other administrators to be able to respond quickly with firearms, according to Paxton.
"The reality is we don't have the resources to have law enforcement at every school," Paxton said. "It takes time for law enforcement, no matter how prepared or how good they are, to get there. Having the right training for some of these people at the school is the best hope. Nothing is going to work perfectly but that, in my opinion is the best answer to this problem."
Paxton said Wednesday that his office will continue to work with those who were affected by the shooting through the Attorney General’s Crime Victim Services Programs.
The program offers services for Texans and their families that have been affected by crime and provides them with services such as counseling, medical treatment, funerals, and loss of income not paid by other sources. The office also has a number of other resources such as the Address Confidentiality Program and the Victim Notification Service.
Paxton will be visiting Uvalde on Wednesday to help facilitate the setting up of a location for the Crime Victim Services Program.