Months before a gunman targeted Donald Trump at a presidential campaign rally in rural Pennsylvania, some state lawmakers proposed banning the type of rifle used in the assassination attempt.
The bill did not come to a vote, but that was no surprise. Politically divided Pennsylvania has been at a standstill on gun policy for years because there is not enough support to tighten or loosen existing gun laws.
This is unlikely to change with the shooting at Trump’s rally, in which one participant was killed, two others seriously injured and the Republican presidential candidate’s ear was injured.
“Sadly, we’re probably going to be stuck with our similar gun laws that aren’t strict enough,” said Democratic Rep. Ben Sanchez, who has introduced several gun control measures, including a ban on certain semi-automatic firearms.
More than half of the states have passed fresh gun laws this year, nearly the same number as last year, according to an Associated Press analysis. In Democratic-led states, that has led to further restrictions, such as longer waiting periods for gun purchases in Maine and New Mexico and a ban on the sale of ammunition to people under 21 in Hawaii.
In Republican-led states, these fresh laws have generally strengthened gun rights. Louisiana and South Carolina, among other places, allow adults to carry a concealed weapon without a permit. Numerous Republican-led states have also passed bans on the utilize of special gun store tracking codes on credit card purchases.
But political disagreements often prevent the implementation of gun laws in Pennsylvania. One exception was in October 2018, when then-Democratic Governor Tom Wolf signed a bill passed by the Republican-led House and Senate that requires people convicted of domestic violence or who have a restraining order against them to surrender their guns within 24 hours.
A few weeks later, a deadly mass shooting at a synagogue in Pittsburgh Pennsylvania brought the spotlight back into focus. The General Assembly responded by creating a five-year, $5 million grant program to fund security improvements at houses of worship and other nonprofits that could be targets of hate crimes.
But since then there has been little cross-party agreement.
In 2021, Wolf vetoed a Republican-backed bill that would have allowed people to carry concealed weapons without a permit. The following year, he vetoed another Republican-backed bill that would have allowed lawsuits against local governments that regulate the possession, transfer, or transportation of weapons in violation of a state ban on such local ordinances.
But Wolf wasn’t the only one blocking bills. House Republicans used a procedural trick in 2022 to block a Democratic bill that would have banned people under 21 from owning certain semi-automatic weapons. Republicans changed the bill entirely, instead allowing anyone to carry concealed weapons. Ultimately, however, it did not become law.
In the November 2022 elections, Democrats won a one-seat majority in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives and soon began pushing various gun control measures.
Last year, the House passed legislation expanding background checks on gun sales and allowing judges to order the confiscation of guns from people deemed a danger to themselves or others at the request of police or family members. This year, the House passed a bill banning “ghost guns,” which do not have serial numbers. But all three measures failed in the Republican-controlled Senate.
Three other bills failed in close votes in the House. These include bills banning trigger devices that cause rapid firing, requiring gun sales to be reported electronically to state police, and requiring gun owners to report the loss or theft of a gun within 72 hours.
Sanchez’s bill to ban assault rifles passed a House committee in January but has not advanced. Although the bill included an exception for guns already legally owned, Sanchez said the intent was to ban the type of AR-15 rifle that authorities said was used by the 20-year-old man who shot Trump.
Following the shooting, Pennsylvania Attorney General Michelle Henry called on lawmakers in Pennsylvania, other states and Congress to enact “assault weapons bans.”
“If one of the most protected people on the planet – a former U.S. president – is not immune to the dangers posed by the proliferation and availability of high-capacity, long-range offensive weapons, we must respond and rethink our collective indifference to this issue,” Henry told AP.
Ten states and the District of Columbia already have laws that generally prohibit the sale, transfer and manufacture of so-called assault weapons, although the definitions of these vary.
But it is politically complex to enforce such bans because for ardent gun rights activists, the AR-15 has become “a symbol of freedom,” says Adam Garber, executive director of CeaseFirePA, an organization that campaigns against gun violence.
Trump did not mention gun laws when he recounted his shooting during a speech at the Republican National Convention, but some Trump supporters said they remained skeptical of efforts to further restrict guns.
“I think our gun laws are pretty good,” said Michele Tomsik, a nurse who attended Trump’s rally with her 15-year-old daughter and was crouched on the ground with others when the shots rang out.
The shooter used a gun that authorities say his father had purchased legally and searched the Internet for information about major depressive disorder, although investigators have not yet determined whether he has actually been diagnosed with such a disorder.
Tomsik said she wants to see more government funding for mental health care, but added that the shooting also raises some questions about guns.
“Why do you have an AR? Where did it come from? How did he get it and why?” Tomsik asked rhetorically. “But I’m worried that if we start rolling everything back like this, they’ll start taking away more and more Second Amendment rights.”
Research is largely divided on the effectiveness of government bans on “assault weapons,” says Rosanna Smart, co-director of the RAND Gun Policy in America Initiative, which released an analysis earlier this week.
The RAND report said there is better research on other gun laws. It cited evidence that safe-storage gun laws reduce gunshot injuries and deaths among youth; higher minimum age requirements for gun purchases can reduce suicide rates among youth; and an raise in gun homicides is associated with looser concealed-carry laws and self-defense based on “stand-your-ground” rules.
High-profile incidents like the attempted assassination of Trump often lead to renewed discussions about gun policy and mass shootings, Smart said.
“It’s going to be really, really difficult to know what gun policies are going to be effective in reducing casualties,” she said. “But they do provide an opportunity to step back and rethink state and federal gun legislation.”
