BY CONSUELO MCABOY
Incidents of gun violence in 2012 including the theater shooting in Aurora, Colorado and the elementary school shooting in Newtown, Connecticut are still resonating with the public's emotions and raising questions of safety in schools and public places.
Gun violence can happen anywhere, tragic incidents have taken place in large cities and small towns, in big schools and small rural area schools.
One of those smaller schools is Clare High School.
"We have pretty good visual from the secretary's desk there but we're thinking of having both my desk have a monitor and hers so that we can buzz people in." Turner said.
Turner said past incidents and most recent in Newtown made officials across the country re-examine safety plans to make sure his and all schools are prepared in the event of an active shooter.
"Having perhaps exercises or practice lockdown drills or even table top scenarios, which we've had in my experience at least once in the county and I think that we need to do more of those if we can, it would serve all the schools in the county very well." Turner said.
Al White agrees, he's the school police officer for Clare. He thinks having teachers carry guns could be an option to provide more safety.
Protection of the students, one thing that all school shootings have in common is the only person with the firearm is the person that's murdering people.
White said it would have to be a decision made individually by each school.
Lori Haas works for the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, she doesn't agree.
"Well that's not happening right now is it. We are a country with more rounds per capita than any other country in the world and yet our violence is 20 times higher than the next." Haas said.
Haas has a perspective much different than most parents, her daughter, Emily, was a victim in the 2007 shooting at Virginia Tech University.
The professor and 11 students were killed, 7 survived with varying degrees of injuries and Emily was one of those who was injured although her injuries were less significant than the others
Emily was shot twice in the back of the head, but survived.
When Haas heard the news, she said the first thing she felt was.
"Panic...just not understanding what could possibly be going on, my knees buckled down, I almost fainted, my companion drove me home." Haas said.
The small community of Bath, near East Lansing, Michigan experienced that same feeling of panic.
In April 1927, Bath Elementary School was bombed by its school board treasurer, seeking revenge on the community after he lost an election for township clerk.
That bombing killed 38 children and 6 adults, and injured at least 58 others, it is still the deadliest mass murder in a school in U.S history.
Jake Huffman is the superintendent of Bath Community Schools.
"It had a huge impact on the families in the community and people in the community are still very sensitive to any threats or perceived threats that may happen in the community regarding bomb threats that we may occasionally get or when we have breaking and entering that have occurred on occasion." Huffman said.
A common reaction to situations of violence is the feeling of "we never thought it would happen here."
Mark Ostapowicz is the lieutenant of Grand Rapids Police Department.
He said before a mass shooting in 2011, "nothing of this scale ever happened in Grand Rapids."
He had killed seven people, shot at another one, fired shots at officers, led them on a high speed pursuit throughout the city, eventually breaking into a house and taking three people hostage.
Ostapowicz said fear spread throughout the city.
"They were on edge because for a while after the discovery of all of the homicides, we had no idea where he was for a period of time so the whole city was on edge wondering where he was, what he was going to do next, that type of thing." Ostapowicz said.
"In shopping malls, in schools, in the everyday workplace, people and institutions share the hope that implementing new rules and procedures will make them safer in the event of an attack." He said.
Aurora, Newtown, and other places are the snapshots of a wider society that feels the impact whenever gun violence happens.