Utah's New Attorney General Committed to Protecting Schools

Utah's attorney general-elect says he's heartsick about last week's school shooting in Connecticut.  John Swallow tells KUER he's committed to doing everything he can to protect kids in schools, short of turning schools into prisons. 

Swallow says he's already been talking to officials in other states, working on a plan to get together discuss what they can do to address mass shootings and gun violence.  While he says the Constitution needs to be protected, Swallow says they need to take a close look at one area of the law.

"There is a problem," he says, "when mentally ill people can get their hands on guns.  How you set that up, how you limit that is something that needs to be talked about and really researched."

Utah already has a law meant to make it more difficult for a person with mental illness to buy a gun.  It was passed after shootings at the Triad Center and the LDS Family History Library in 1999.  Swallow was a co-sponsor of the bill when he served in the legislature.