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

Dear Parents and Guardians,

This message was released Friday by the Mesa Unified School District:

“What will Connecticut Senator Joe Lieberman say about the shootings at Newtown, Conn.? Will we finally get serious about keeping assault weapons out of the hands of kooks? Or will we continue the string of assaults starting at Columbine, winding through Tucson, then back to Denver and now to Connecticut? I bet we continue acting like the kooks we spawn.”

Tempe law enforcement officers met with teachers and principals about school safety on Wednesday and encouraged school leaders to have an emergency plan in place.

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.

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.

Though Friday’s school shootings in Connecticut were thousands of miles away, the tragedy saddened and shocked East Valley educators and parents as they shuddered to imagine something so horrific happening here in their classrooms, to their kids.

ALBANY, N.Y. — 

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.

Republicans who control the Arizona Senate pushed through a bill Monday allowing designated teachers, administrators or other employees in rural schools to carry a handgun and allowing retired police officers who work in schools statewide to carry guns.

New York  --  Well aware that the television audience may be particularly sensitive, the Showtime network aired a disclaimer warning audiences of violent content in the season finales of its dramas “Homeland” and “Dexter” last weekend. It was two days after a gunman killed 26 people in a Newtown, Conn., elementary school.