D.C. Mayor Vincent Gray said Wednesday he would consider adding armed guards to District public schools, the Washington Examiner reported.

First pitched by the National Rifle Association as a response to the Dec. 14 slayings at Sandy Hook Elementary School, Gray said he could support the proposal upon further review.

“I think if it’s a way of further protecting our students, I’m open for that discussion,” Gray, an alumnus, told the Washington Examiner.

City middle schools and high schools already have armed police officers, but Gray might back a plan to place armed guards in all of the District’s 125 public schools. He stressed that he would not support a proposal to allow teachers to carry firearms on school property – another idea floated by the NRA in the wake of the shootings.

D.C. Council Chairman Phil Mendelson has opposed suggestions to add armed guards around the city, which has some of the strictest gun laws in the country.

“The response to gun violence is not more guns,” Mendelson told the Examiner. “We have to deal with more difficult issues: the prevalence of violence, the acceptance of violence in our society and the fact that there are people who should not have guns who do have guns.”