WASHINGTON — The question surfaces each time a mass murder unfolds: Will this one change the political calculus in Washington against tougher gun control?

NEWTOWN, Conn. — A man opened fire Friday inside the Connecticut elementary school where his mother worked as a teacher, killing 26 people, including 20 children, as youngsters cowered in their classrooms and trembled helplessly to the sound of gunfire reverberating through the building.

Immediately following the December shooting at Connecticut’s Sandy Hook Elementary School, aggressive debates on school security, mental health, gun safety and the national conscience as a whole began to dot the U.S. political and media landscapes.

NEWTOWN, Conn. — A man opened fire Friday inside the Connecticut elementary school where his mother worked as a teacher, killing 26 people, including 20 children, as youngsters cowered in their classrooms and trembled helplessly to the sound of gunfire reverberating through the building.

The tragic shooting of 20 children and six adults at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., felt particularly personal to many students and teachers, including fourth-grade teacher Jaime Hunt at Higley Unified School District’s Cortina Elementary School in Queen Creek.

Dear Parents and Guardians,

PHOENIX — An Arizona sheriff has announced plans to deploy an armed volunteer posse to protect Phoenix-area students in the wake of the mass shooting at a Connecticut elementary school.

A girl at Mesa’s Johnson Elementary School tripped while playing basketball last year, falling on her arm and breaking it in two places. The culprit — flip-flops.

A girl at Mesa’s Johnson Elementary School tripped while playing basketball last year, falling on her arm and breaking it in two places.

Mesa school officials will analyze every campus to assess safety measures in the aftermath of the Newtown, Conn., shootings last month.

Calling it a compromise between extremes, Attorney General Tom Horne on Wednesday proposed training and arming the principal or other top administrator at every public school.

Calling it a compromise between extremes, Attorney General Tom Horne on Wednesday proposed training and arming the principal or other top administrator at every public school.