Mass shootings have commanded public attention on a disturbingly frequent basis across the U.S., from a supermarket slaying in Buffalo, New York, to an elementary school tragedy in Uvalde, Texas, to a recent shooting at a California dance hall.
\nRather than provoking a unified response from elected officials,\u00a0each additional shooting\u00a0seems to be widening the political divide among states on who should be allowed to have guns and what types are OK.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s wash, rinse and repeat with these mass shootings,\u201d said Michael Anderson, a bartender who survived\u00a0a mass shooting at a Colorado nightclub. \u201cThey happen, and then they happen, and then they happen \u2014 and then nothing gets done.\u201d
\nAt least nothing that has put a halt to the violence.
\nIn Democratic-led states with already restrictive gun laws, elected officials have responded to home-state tragedies by enacting and proposing even more limits on guns \u2014 doubling down on a belief that future shootings can be thwarted by controlling access to lethal weapons.
\nIn many states with Republican-led legislatures, recent high-profile shootings appear unlikely to prompt any new firearm restrictions this year \u2014 reflecting a belief that violent people, not their weapons, are the problem.
\n\u201cObviously, no one wants to see these tragedies occur \u2014 this loss of life \u2014 but how the problem is viewed, and therefore what the response is to that problem, is night and day difference,\u201d said Daniel Webster, an American health professor affiliated with the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions.
\nFor the third straight year, the U.S. in 2022 recorded more than 600 mass shootings in which at least four people were killed or injured,\u00a0according to the Gun Violence Archive. This year got off to another deadly start, including\u00a0three California mass shootings in barely a week\u00a0that killed two dozen people. A Saturday morning\u00a0shooting in an upscale Los Angeles neighborhood\u00a0that killed at least three and wounded four added to the grim toll. That despite the fact California already has some of the nation\u2019s strictest gun laws.
\nAs more communities grieve, legislative sessions are getting underway in many states. Numerous gun-related bills already have been filed, but they don\u2019t all stand an equal chance of passing, or of ultimately working.
\nSo-called assault weapon bans on certain semi-automatic weapons are among the most talked about gun-control measures. But they do not seem to be associated with reductions in deadly mass shootings,\u00a0according to a study\u00a0by Webster and others that analyzed more than 600 mass shootings in 45 states from 1984 through 2017. The study excluded shootings related to gangs and drugs.
\nA common solution from gun-rights advocates \u2014 allowing people to carry concealed guns without a permit as a means of fighting back against shooters \u2014 also seems to have little connection to the number of mass shootings, according the study.
\nWhat did work, according to the researchers, were state laws requiring permits with fingerprint background checks to own handguns. Also effective, at least to some extent, were laws limiting large-capacity magazines for ammunition.
\n\u201cThe research shows that you\u2019re much better off focusing on who has those guns rather than what the gun is,\u201d said Michael Siegel, a professor of public health and community medicine at Tufts University who researches violence committed with guns.
\nWebster\u2019s study didn\u2019t include so-called red-flag laws, which allow authorities to temporarily remove guns from people posing a danger to themselves or others. But\u00a0an Associated Press analysis last year\u00a0found that many of the 19 states with such laws rarely use them \u2014 a trend rooted in a lack of awareness about the laws and resistance by some authorities.
\nAP examined how policymakers are responding to mass shootings that occurred over the past eight months in eight politically diverse states \u2014 Democratic-led Colorado, Illinois and New York; Republican-led Missouri, Oklahoma and Texas; and politically divided North Carolina and Virginia.
\nIn Texas, Democratic state Sen. Roland Gutierrez convened a Capitol news conference this past week with relatives of some of the 19 children and two teachers\u00a0killed last May at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde. They pleaded with lawmakers to enact stricter gun control laws and lift restraints against lawsuits alleging negligence by law enforcement officers and public agencies for the slow response to the massacre.
\nFelicia Martinez, whose 10-year-old son Xavier Lopez was killed in the attack, described weeping with grief during the holidays and urged lawmakers to raise the legal age to purchase semi-automatic rifles from age 18 to 21. The Uvalde shooter, who was 18, used a semi-automatic gun.
\n\u201cAn 18-year-old should not be allowed to purchase an ugly weapon,\u201d Martinez said while wiping a tear from her eye. She added: \u201cThese laws need to be changed, and they need to be changed today \u2014 not tomorrow.\u201d
\nYet that seems unlikely. Texas House Speaker Dade Phelan, a Republican, told reporters earlier this month he didn\u2019t foresee enough support in the House to pass bills limiting access to guns. Republican\u00a0Gov. Greg Abbott has said\u00a0raising the purchasing age for semi-automatic rifles would be \u201cunconstitutional,\u201d though several states already have similar restrictions.
\nInstead, Texas officials responded last summer with $105.5 million for school safety and mental health initiatives. Texas took a similar approach after a 2018 shooting at Santa Fe High School near Houston, approving $100 million for school safety measures such as metal detectors, vehicle barriers and shooter alarm systems. But Abbott and Republican lawmakers resisted calls for stricter gun ownership measures.
\nMissouri seems similarly unlikely to enact stricter gun laws after\u00a0a 19-year-old recent graduate killed a teacher, a student and wounded seven others\u00a0last October at Central Visual and Performing Arts High School in St. Louis. Police said they had previously responded to a call from the 19-year-old\u2019s mother to remove a gun from his possession, but they could not do so because Missouri lacks a red-flag law.
\nWhen the shooting occurred, Janay Douglas was on the phone with her 15-year-old daughter as she fled from a school hallway.
\n\u201cI\u2019m hearing everything transpiring until she\u2019s running, and I\u2019m hearing her scream my name, and she hangs up the phone,\u201d Douglas said. \u201cI thought my daughter was dead.\u201d
\nShe wasn\u2019t shot, and eventually\u00a0returned with other students to the school\u00a0in January. If a red-flag law had been in place, \u201cthis would not have happened \u2014 at least that person, that situation, that gun, that death, all of that could have been prevented,\u201d Douglas said.
\nDemocratic state Sen. Karla May, who represents the area, is sponsoring legislation creating a judicial process to remove guns from people at risk of harming themselves or others. But its prospects are not good.
\n\u201cI don\u2019t think a red flag law \u2014 the way I know it to be and the way it\u2019s been defined \u2014 has any chance of getting through the Missouri Senate, that\u2019s for certain,\u201d said Senate President Pro Tem Caleb Rowden, a Republican.
\nMissouri Gov. Mike Parson, a Republican, has instead proposed $50 million for school safety grants in response to the shooting.
\nNew gun laws also are unlikely in North Carolina after police say\u00a0a 15-year-old boy killed five people in a Raleigh neighborhood\u00a0last October. The gun-rights lobbying group Grass Roots North Carolina recently wrote to Republican legislative leaders reminding them of their campaign support while dismissing proposals for a red-flag law as \u201cunconstitutional.\u201d
\nRepublican Senate leader Phil Berger said he hadn\u2019t seen any red-flag-law proposals that would \u201cprovide a positive benefit without creating a substantial impediment to people\u2019s constitutional right to own a weapon.\u201d But he said lawmakers may fund an educational campaign about safely storing guns.
\nOklahoma\u2019s Republican lawmakers are expected to push for looser gun laws when their session begins Feb. 6. The state experienced several mass shootings last year, including a June rampage in which\u00a0a shooter killed four at a Tulsa medical facility\u00a0with semi-automatic guns he had just purchased.
\nRepublican state Rep. Jim Olsen has filed a bill to lower the age for carrying a firearm from 21 to 18 \u2014 the opposite of what gun-control advocates are pushing for in some other states.
\n\u201cIt\u2019s a constitutional right,\u201d Olsen said. \u201cThe immaturity that exists at 18 sometimes also still exists at 22. So, what do we want to do? Raise the age to 25 or 30? I would think not.\u201d
\nVirginia provides an example of how changes in political control can affect a state\u2019s firearms policies.
\nIn 2019, a city engineer\u00a0killed 12 and wounded several others at a Virginia Beach\u00a0municipal building. Later that year, Democrats running partly on a gun-control platform won full control of Virginia government. The next January, tens of thousands of gun owners from around the country rallied at the Capitol against proposed gun restrictions.
\nBut lawmakers ultimately approved much of then-Gov. Ralph Northam\u2019s gun-control package, including universal background checks on gun sales, limits on handgun purchases to one a month, and a red-flag law allowing authorities to temporarily remove guns.
\nVirginia experienced two more high-profile shootings last November \u2014 one\u00a0at a Chesapeake Walmart\u00a0and another on\u00a0a bus carrying University of Virginia students. But more gun limits are unlikely, because Republicans now control the House while Democrats control the Senate.
\nThis past week, Republicans on a House subcommittee\u00a0voted down several Democratic gun bills,\u00a0including measures that would have banned assault-style firearms, prohibited guns at college facilities and tightened gun-storage requirements. Republican Virginia Gov. Glenn Youngkin has said the recent shootings underscore the need for\u00a0$230 million of new funding for mental health\u00a0services.
\nBy contrast, lawmakers in Democratic-led New York and Illinois moved fairly quickly to enact additional gun restrictions after mass shootings last year.
\nAn 18-year-old shooter outfitted with body armor and a semi-automatic rifle\u00a0killed 10 people and injured three others\u00a0last May at a Buffalo grocery story in a predominantly black neighborhood. Within a month, the Democratic-led legislature and governor\u00a0enacted new gun restrictions, including a measure barring people under age 21 from buying semi-automatic rifles, new limits on the sale of bullet-resistant vests and armor, and tighter red-flag law provisions.
\n\u201cIn New York, we are taking bold, strong action.\u201d Democratic Gov. Kathy Hochul said while signing the bills.
\nIllinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, signed legislation earlier this month spurred largely by an\u00a0Independence Day parade shooting\u00a0that killed seven and injured dozens in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park. The law\u00a0bans the sale or possession\u00a0of dozens of specific types and brands of semi-automatic guns and high-capacity ammunition magazines. It also requires people who already own such guns to register them with the state police.
\nA state judge recently issued a temporary restraining order\u00a0blocking enforcement of the Illinois law\u00a0in one of several lawsuits testing the legislative procedure used to approve it. Several\u00a0federal lawsuits challenging the law\u2019s constitutionality\u00a0also have been filed.
\nIn Colorado, members the Democratic-led Legislature are proposing a variety of new gun restrictions, two months after five people were killed at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado Springs and two decades after the 1999 Columbine High School massacre. The reception was lukewarm to\u00a0a proposal to ban certain semi-automatic guns, but Democratic leaders have been more supportive of proposals to strengthen red flag laws and raise the minimum age to purchase firearms from 18 to 21.
\nRepublican state Rep. Gabe Evans, a former law enforcement officer, describes the new proposals as part of \u201ca long trend of leftist overreach that\u2019s trying to restrict firearm access without giving a thought to the fact of: \u2018Is this actually making our communities safer?\u2019\u201d
\nAnderson, who was bartending at Club Q during the shooting, believes everyone would be safer if politicians embraced a combination of greater gun control and better mental health services.
\n\u201cAfter what I\u2019ve been through and my friends and our community here, you know, doing nothing is not an option,\u201d Anderson said.<\/p>\n