In the US, around 50 mass shootings have been reported this year so far. It may feel like there’s an endless cycle of shootings followed by calls for reform that then lead to no action. However, thousands of new gun laws have been passed at the state level in response to mass shootings, according to a 2020 study.
The study found that Democrat-controlled states were more likely to pass stricter gun laws, while Republican-controlled states usually loosened them. However, the study also discovered that mass shootings had no statistically significant effect on the number of laws passed by Democrats. On the other hand, mass shootings roughly doubled the number of laws enacted by Republicans that loosened gun restrictions in the following year.
For example, after the Sandy Hook elementary school shooting in 2012, Texas responded a few months later by creating a program that allowed some school employees to carry guns in school. This has resulted in a patchwork system, where some states like California have some of the strongest gun laws in the country, while neighboring states like Arizona have some of the weakest.