A California mother is talking about what she sees as a worrying trend, news that school police in her city will now have access to 14 AR-15 assault rifles, for use in the case of a mass shooting or the threat of such an attack.

"It scares me, it frightens me. It's not the way I was brought up. It's just the fact they're dealing with violence with more violence. And that scares me," said Virginia Nuño, a mother of three school-age daughters in Fontana, Calif.

The rifles were purchased for Fontana school police last fall, before the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in December, when a gunman used a Bushmaster assault weapon to kill 20 first-graders and six staffers in Newtown, Conn.

The Fontana school board voted on Wednesday in favour of keeping the rifles in school safes that only an officer who is present on campus will be able to access.

Several California school police departments have access to assault rifles.

CBC's Lyndsay Duncombe reports from Fontana on the debate over how to protect students from gun violence.