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State

After mass shootings like Uvalde, national gun control fails – but states often loosen gun laws

Christopher Poliquin
May 27, 2022
Family grieves in Uvalde, Texas

A family grieves outside the SSGT Willie de Leon Civic Center following the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas. on May 24, 2022 in Uvalde, Texas.

Brandon Bell/Getty Images

Poliquin is an assistant professor of strategy at the University of California, Los Angeles.

Calls for new gun legislation that previously failed to pass Congress are being raised again after the May 24, 2022, mass shooting at an elementary school in the small town of Uvalde, Texas.

An 18-year-old shooter killed at least 19 fourth grade students and two teachers at Robb Elementary School, marking the deadliest school shooting in the U.S. in a decade.

The U.S. has been here before – after shootings in Tucson, Aurora, Newtown, Charleston, Roseburg, San Bernardino, Orlando, Las Vegas, Parkland, El Paso, Boulder, and 10 days earlier at a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y.

Gun production and sales in the U.S. remain high, following a purchasing surge during the COVID-19 pandemic. In 2021, the firearms industry sold about six guns for every 100 Americans.

Senator Chris Murphy of Connecticut was among the Democratic politicians who pleaded for action on gun control as horrifying details of the Uvalde school shooting unfolded.

“What are we doing?” Murphy asked other lawmakers, speaking from the Senate floor on the day of the shooting. “Why are you here if not to solve a problem as existential as this?”

Congress has declined to pass significant new gun legislation after dozens of shootings, including those that occurred during periods like this one, with Democrats controlling the House of Representatives, Senate and presidency.

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This response may seem puzzling given that national opinion polls reveal extensive support for several gun control policies, including expanding background checks and banning assault weapons.

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Congress

Why gun control laws don’t pass Congress, despite public support and repeated outrage over mass shootings

Monika L. McDermott
David R. Jones
May 27, 2022
Uvalde newspaper

The front page of the local newspaper in Uvalde, Texas, on May 26.

Allison Dinner/AFP via Getty Images

McDermott is a professor of political science at Fordham University. Jones is a professor of political science at Baruch College, CUNY.

With the carnage in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, N.Y.,in May 2022, calls have begun again for Congress to enact gun control. Since the 2012 massacre of 20 children and four staff members at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., legislation introduced in response to mass killings has consistently failed to pass the Senate. The Conversation asked political scientists Monika McDermott and David Jones to help readers understand why further restrictions never pass, despite a majority of Americans supporting tighter gun control laws.

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