AUSTIN, Texas -- Texas would pay for employees at some schools to learn to carry a gun on the job under a proposal being considered at the state Capitol.

The Senate Education Committee debated the measure at a hearing Tuesday.

The bill by Houston Republican Sen. Dan Patrick would apply to charter schools and public schools that do not already have armed security guards. It would require the state Department of Public Safety to provide firearms training for two employees per campus.

Several proposals to extend the reach of guns in schools have gained traction in the Legislature, which opened its biannual session a month after 20 schoolchildren were killed in a mass shooting in Connecticut.

The National Rifle Association has called for an armed guard in every school in America.