Watch: Viral video of US woman training 5-year-old son to survive a shooting

The US has a long history of gun violence. In 2022 alone, there were 27 shootings at schools, according to NPR.

The deadliest among them took place in Uvalde, Texas, in May, where 19 children and two teachers were gunned down by a teenager.

Walton told CNN she bought her child, who was about to start kindergarten, a bulletproof insert for his backpack after the Uvalde shooting.

Having heard about what happened in Uvalde, Walton's son asked her if a shootout could happen at his school too.

"I tried to answer his question age-appropriately and then I explained to him about the bulletproof backpack," she said. "He knows that is the kind of stuff police officers use."

Walton said her son was not afraid to go to school or do the drill. She added that her drill was the same as was carried out in schools, with only one addition -- the bulletproof backpack.

Many parents praised Walton for preparing her son for a possible shooting but experts said that approach required caution.

"Parents are right to be afraid but what we do about it needs to be looked at very carefully. Bulletproof jackets, AR-15s in schools are possibly long-term, potentially causing psychological and social harm," Bon Avo Astor, social welfare professor at University of California, Los Angeles, told CNN.