States show different responses to criminal gun use

(AP) -- 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.
Rather than provoking a unified response from elected officials, each additional shooting seems to be widening the political divide among states on who should be allowed to have guns and what types are OK.
In 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 -- doubling down on a belief that future shootings can be thwarted by controlling access to lethal weapons.
In many states with Republican-led legislatures, recent high-profile shootings appear unlikely to prompt any new firearm restrictions this year -- reflecting a belief that violent people, not their weapons, are the problem.
"Obviously, no one wants to see these tragedies occur -- this loss of life -- but how the problem is viewed, and therefore what the response is to that problem, is night and day difference," said Daniel Webster, an American health professor affiliated with the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions.
For 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, according to the Gun Violence Archive. This year has already included three California mass shootings in barely a week that killed two dozen people. That despite the fact California already has some of the nation's strictest gun laws.
As more communities grieve, legislative sessions are getting underway in many states. Numerous gun-related bills already have been filed, but they don't all stand an equal chance of passing, or of ultimately working.
So-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, according to a study by 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.
A common solution from gun-rights advocates -- allowing people to carry concealed guns without a permit as a means of fighting back against shooters -- also seems to have little connection to the number of mass shootings, according to the study.
"The research shows that you're much better off focusing on who has those guns rather than what the gun is," said Michael Siegel, a professor of public health and community medicine at Tufts University.
In 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.
Virginia provides an example of how changes in political control can affect a state's firearms policies.
In 2019, a city engineer killed 12 and wounded several others at a Virginia Beach municipal 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.
But lawmakers ultimately approved much of then-Gov. Ralph Northam's 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.
Virginia experienced two more high-profile shootings last November -- one at a Chesapeake Walmart and another on a bus carrying University of Virginia students. But more gun limits are unlikely, because Republicans now control the House while Democrats control the Senate.
This past week, Republicans on a House subcommittee voted down several Democratic gun bills, including 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 $230 million of new funding for mental health services.
By contrast, lawmakers in Democratic-led New York and Illinois moved fairly quickly to enact additional gun restrictions after mass shootings last year.
An 18-year-old shooter outfitted with body armor and a semi-automatic rifle killed 10 people and injured three others last May at a Buffalo grocery store in a predominantly Black neighborhood. Within a month, the Democratic-led legislature and governor enacted 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.
Illinois Gov. J.B. Pritzker, a Democrat, signed legislation earlier this month spurred largely by an Independence Day parade shooting that killed seven and injured dozens in the Chicago suburb of Highland Park. The law bans the sale or possession of 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.
A state judge recently issued a temporary restraining order blocking enforcement of the Illinois law in one of several lawsuits testing the legislative procedure used to approve it. Several federal lawsuits challenging the law's constitutionality also have been filed. Many of New York's new laws have been ruled to be enforceable while appeals make their way through the courts.
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Associated Press writers Acacia Coronado; Jesse Bedayn; Sean Murphy; Thomas Peipert; Sarah Rankin; Gary Robertson; and Jim Salter contributed to this report.