PORTLAND, Ore. (AP) — In the wake of an elementary school shooting in Tennessee earlier this week that left three 9-year-olds and three adults dead, state legislatures across the country are moving forward with bills aiming to improve school safety.

The bills have been introduced in blue and red states alike and would require schools to install technology ranging from panic buttons, video surveillance and emergency communications systems. Most have bipartisan support, with lawmakers seeing them as a way to boost school security while avoiding political gridlock on the hot-button issue of gun control. But some experts say teacher safety training is more effective and less expensive than the new technologies, which also can require upgrades or ongoing maintenance that may not be funded.

That hasn’t stopped states from Oregon to Missouri to Tennessee from pursuing the systems.

“I was asked by a colleague if our schools will have to become fortresses to keep our kids safe. And I told them yes, if that’s what it takes. I don’t care if we have to park a tank outside a school,” Tennessee’s Republican House Majority Leader William Lamberth said.

While Democratic state lawmakers have called for tighter gun laws as a way to stem school shootings, many are now also supporting the school emergency measures that have largely been touted by Republicans.

In Oregon, where Democrats control the Legislature, a bill that would require schools to send electronic notifications to parents as soon as possible after a safety threat occurs passed the state House unanimously this week. Two Democratic lawmakers are the chief sponsors of another bill that would require all public school classrooms to have panic alert devices that would contact law enforcement or emergency services when activated.

If passed, the panic alert bill would make Oregon the fourth state — along with Republican-led Florida and Democratic-led New Jersey and New York — to enact such a law. Several other states are considering similar legislation.

“If there’s anything we know, it’s that during an emergency, time equals life,” said one of the Oregon bill’s chief sponsors, Democratic state Rep. Emerson Levy.

Some school districts aren’t waiting for legislation to implement new security measures such as panic devices.

Las Vegas’s Clark County School District, among the 10 largest districts nationwide, is now using a system involving badges called CrisisAlert. The badges can be worn around the neck and pressed to call for help or trigger a schoolwide lockdown.

Olathe Public Schools in suburban Kansas City, the second-largest district in the state, also adopted CrisisAlert. The district has yet to use it to respond to an active shooter situation, according to Jim McMullen, who oversees the district’s Safety Services Department and also serves as assistant superintendent of middle school education. But he said school personnel use the badge every day for things ranging from student fights to medical emergencies.

“Earlier today we used it when we had a student who was unconscious. The staff member, instead of leaving the kid to go call for help, was able to just hit their button three times and had a lot of assistance real quickly,” he said on Thursday.

“We’ve gotten tremendous feedback from our staff regarding the fact that it makes them feel safer, empowered,” McMullen said.

Panic alert devices gained steam after the 2018 mass shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.

Lori Alhadeff, whose 14-year-old daughter, Alyssa, was among the 17 killed, founded the group Make Our Schools Safe and began advocating for panic buttons. She had texted her daughter as shots rang out that help was on the way.

“It’s really so important to be proactive, and to really accept the fact that unfortunately this can happen anywhere at any time, as we’ve seen over and over again,” said Lori Kitaygorodsky, the group’s spokesperson. “There’s really nothing to lose by being prepared.”

Some Republican-led states have boosted funding for school safety in order to help schools pay for new devices like panic buttons. Installing CrisisAlert, for example, costs at least $8,000 per campus under a three- to five-year contract, according to Will Fullerton, senior vice president for government affairs at Centegix, the Atlanta-based company that makes the product.

The number of schools using CrisisAlert nearly doubled from 2021 to 2022, according to the company. The badge system delivered over 50,000 alerts in the Fall 2022 semester, a 100% increase from the same time the previous year, said vice president of marketing Stacy Meyer in an email.

After a shooter killed 19 children and two teachers last May at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, state officials announced $105 million for school safety and mental health initiatives. Nearly half of that was slated for bullet-resistant shields for school police and $17 million was for districts to purchase panic-alert technology.

The Missouri House on Thursday approved a 2024 budget with $50 million for school safety grants, on top of $20 million already authorized for school safety in the current year. Schools will be able to use the money on technology including door locking devices, intercom systems and video surveillance equipment.

While one-time grants can allow schools to purchase new technology, they don’t always fund upkeep over longer periods of time. Ken Trump, president of National School Safety and Security Services, a consulting firm based in Cleveland, Ohio, said he’s found items like security cameras gathering dust in boxes in some of the schools that he’s worked with.

“There’s no budget to repair, replace and maintain them after they put them in … Things are pushed into a closet and not used again,” he said.

“The basic fundamental tools are not being properly used — staff not being properly trained, doors that are propped open,” he said, adding that the focus should be on “situational awareness, pattern recognition … and then making cognitive decisions under stress.”

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Associated Press writers Kimberlee Kruesi and David A. Lieb contributed reporting from Nashville, Tennessee and Jefferson City, Missouri.

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Todd Guild | Contributor

On Jan. 28, 18-year-old Rowan Parham was fatally shot at a party in Boulder Creek by a 16-year-old. Parham was fondly described as a loyal friend with a quick wit, a friend to many other students in the San Lorenzo area.

This shooting came less than a week after a mass shooting rocked the Half Moon Bay community. Just an hour down Highway 1 from Santa Cruz, Chunli Zhao allegedly shot and killed seven people and wounded one at a labor camp. The next day, on Jan. 24, another mass shooting in California made headlines when Hemet resident Huu Can Tran killed 10 people and wounded 10 others in a dance studio in Monterey Park near Los Angeles.

And these shootings are just the ones in California. This year, there have already been 59 mass shootings throughout the country, in which at least four people were wounded or killed, according to the Gun Violence Archive.

The spate of ongoing gun violence ignited the attention of California Senator Anthony Portantino, who, along with Gov. Gavin Newsom and several co-authors, introduced a bill on Feb. 1 that intends to strengthen California’s already stringent concealed carry regulations.

Portantino says the legislation was also spurred by New York Rifle and Pistol Association v. Bruen, the recent Supreme Court decision that declared unconstitutional New York’s law requiring gun owners to show good cause to carry a concealed weapon. While that decision does not affect California law, some worry the precedent could prompt gun rights advocates to overturn other legislation.

“In the wake of the recent tragedies in Monterey Park and Half Moon Bay and the continued threat of mass shootings, it’s critical that California leads on the issue of gun safety and reform,” Portantino says. “I am proud to be working with Governor Newsom, Attorney General Bonta and activists on SB 2 to strengthen our existing concealed carry laws and ensure every Californian is safe from gun violence.”

The National Rifle Association’s Institute for Legislative Action did not respond to multiple calls for comment. But on its website, it describes Senate Bill 918’s failure, a bill similar to SB 2, as a huge win for gun owners, who would not have to bear the additional costs, burdens and restrictions that the law proposed.

Newsom, who co-authored the bill, says that California’s strict gun laws have led to a 37% lower gun rate than the national average.

“We’re doubling down on gun safety and strengthening our public carry law to protect it from radical Republican attacks,” he says.

California already requires anyone applying for a CCW permit to justify their need by showing they are under threat. SB 2 would add to this by setting the minimum age for obtaining a permit to 21. It also requires stricter storage and training requirements and limits each CCW license to no more than two guns.

Also, under the proposed law, applicants must undergo interviews—usually with their local sheriff’s departments—a process that includes reference checks and a review of their social media.

Portantino’s bill would also establish several “sensitive public areas” where firearms would be forbidden, such as schools, government buildings, playgrounds and places of worship.

“The Supreme Court’s reckless Bruen decision opened up the floodgates for more guns in more places—but with this bill, California once again renews its commitment to being a national leader in the fight against gun violence,” Shannon Watts says. Watts is a California resident and founder of Moms Demand Action, part of Everytown’s grassroots network. “While the gun industry celebrated the ruling that put their profits over our safety, our grassroots army is proud to stand with our Gun Sense Champions in California to pass this critical bill and make our communities safer.”

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A man firing a rifle killed shoppers at an Indiana mall’s food court. A gunfight at a Houston home killed four people.

A stand-up act by the comedian Craig Robinson in North Carolina didn’t even begin before club-goers fled from a man with a gun.

In Las Vegas, the specter of gunfire at the MGM Grand sent the crowded casino into pandemonium over a panic that started with a shattered glass door.

As gamblers fled for the exits at the MGM and others ducked behind overturned card tables, professional poker player Daniel Negreanu was trampled in what he called a sad reflection of an anxious America gripped by gun violence.

“On the surface, other people would look at it and think it was an overreaction,” Negreanu said. “But it’s warranted … because we live in a state of fear now.”

It was a false alarm in Las Vegas, but the weekend’s gun violence left more than a half-dozen dead or wounded, including a 12-year-old, two 16-year-olds and an 18-year-old.

Fear of shooters has left more people on edge and the shootings — or panic over the fear of them — were just the latest to hit America in 2022 after a school, church, grocery store and a July Fourth parade in Highland Park, Illinois, all become murder scenes in recent months.

In addition, authorities released a damning report that criticized all levels of law enforcement — including inaction by hundreds of federal, state and local officers — for a chaotic and feckless response on May 24 to a gunman who killed 19 students and two teachers inside Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas.

Here is a look at some of what happened this weekend:

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GREENWOOD, INDIANA

Three people died and two were injured after a man with a rifle started shooting at the Greenwood Park Mall on Sunday evening. An armed civilian shot and killed him, police said.

The shooter began firing after leaving a bathroom at the suburban Indianapolis mall shortly before it closed, Greenwood police Chief James Ison said Monday.

Witnesses described panicked mall goers fleeing.

Killed were a married couple — Pedro Pineda, 56, and Rosa Mirian Rivera de Pineda, 37 — and Victor Gomez, 30, according to coroners’ offices.

A 22-year-old who was legally carrying a firearm killed the gunman, stopping the shooter “almost as soon as he began,” Ison said.

“Many more people would have died last night if not for a responsible armed citizen,” Ison said.

The three people who died were in addition to the 20-year-old shooter. Police did not yet know a motive.

Ison said the man used an AR-15-style rifle during the shooting, firing 24 rounds within two minutes. Investigators found another one and magazines with more than 100 rounds of ammunition in the bathroom. They also found a handgun on the shooter.

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HOUSTON

Four people died after a gunfight at an apartment complex in Houston late Saturday.

The Harris County sheriff’s office said witnesses reported seeing several people, including the victims, shooting at each other after they began arguing.

Sheriff Ed Gonzalez said those killed included two 16-year-olds, a 19-year-old and a 25-year-old.

The sheriff’s office did not identify the victims, a motive or a suspect.

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EAST GLACIER PARK, MONTANA

Two men and an 18-month old toddler died after being shot at the Blackfeet Indian Reservation, a community of 17,000 people just outside Glacier National Park.

Two women were injured, at least one of them wounded by a gun.

Authorities said there were no other imminent threats to the public and declined to release more information.

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CHARLOTTE, NORTH CAROLINA

Patrons waiting for the show to start at The Comedy Zone fled on Saturday night when a man waved a gun, told everyone to leave and then fired it in the empty venue, according to police and witnesses.

No one was injured. The man, identified by police as Omar McCombs, pulled the gun before actor and comedian Craig Robinson came out to perform.

About 50 customers had been inside.

McCombs, 36, was taken into custody and faces several charges, including assault. Police did not disclose a motive.

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LAS VEGAS

People fled and upturned poker tables in a panic over the mistaken belief that gunfire had erupted at the MGM Grand casino hotel late Saturday night.

Police found no evidence of gunfire; just a shattered glass door in the valet area.

Video posted to social media showed people scrambling across the Strip, including one video that showed officers approaching with guns drawn and lowered as several people hurried in the opposite direction.

Negreanu said his wrist was bloodied and injured in the stampede of people fleeing.

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TULSA

An 18-year-old woman was killed after an altercation led to gunfire early Sunday morning at a downtown gathering spot called the Center of the Universe, police said.

Police said she was a passenger in a vehicle when an altercation broke out between two groups of people. Gunfire erupted, hitting the woman and a building, shattering glass doors, according to police.

Police received a call about gunfire and kids “running everywhere” at the gathering spot, a concrete circle known for its acoustic features.

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UVALDE, TEXAS

Sunday saw the release of a long-awaited report that further laid bare the chaotic response to May 24′s mass shooting at Robb Elementary in Uvalde.

The findings of an investigative committee criticized both state and federal law enforcement, and not just local authorities for the bewildering inaction by heavily armed officers outside while a gunman fired bullets inside adjoining fourth-grade classrooms.

Nearly 400 law enforcement officials rushed to the school, but “egregiously poor decision making” resulted in more than an hour of chaos before the gunman was finally confronted and killed, according to the report written by an investigative committee from the Texas House of Representatives.

The gunman fired approximately 142 rounds inside the building — and it is “almost certain” that at least 100 shots came before any officer entered, according to the report, which laid out numerous failures.

The committee didn’t “receive medical evidence” to show that police storming the classrooms sooner would have saved lives, but it concluded that “it is plausible that some victims could have survived if they had not had to wait 73 additional minutes for rescue.”

Hours after the report was released, Uvalde officials separately released hours of body camera footage from the city’s police officers who responded to the attack.

Video from Uvalde Staff Sgt. Eduardo Canales, the head of the city’s SWAT team, showed the officer approaching the classrooms when gunfire rang out at 11:37 a.m.

A minute later, Canales said: “Dude, we’ve got to get in there. We’ve got to get in there, he just keeps shooting.”

It was 72 minutes later, at 12:50 p.m., when officers finally breached the classrooms and killed the shooter.

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LOS ANGELES (AP) — Two people were killed and three wounded in robberies before dawn Monday at six 7-Eleven stores in Southern California and authorities said they were seeking the same lone gunman in at least three of the crimes.

The string of violence occurred occurred within a timespan of about five hours on July 11, or 7/11, the day when the national 7-Eleven brand celebrates its anniversary. This is its 95th year and on Monday stores gave out free Slurpee drinks.

It wasn’t immediately clear to investigators what prompted the violence in the cities of Ontario, Upland, Riverside, Santa Ana, Brea and La Habra.

“I think the only person to answer that would be the suspect,” said Officer Ryan Railsback, a spokesperson for the Riverside Police Department.

But he said the date was no accident.

“There’s no way it can be a coincidence of it being 7-Eleven, July 11,” Railsback said.

7-Eleven Inc. issued a statement saying it was gathering information and working with police. “Our hearts are with the victims and their loved ones,” the statement said.

The first robbery happened at about midnight in Ontario, about 35 miles (56 kilometers) east of Los Angeles.

The masked man brandished a handgun at the store’s employee and demanded money, according to Ontario Cpl. Emily Hernandez. He did not fire any shots and the clerk was not injured. It was not immediately clear to investigators what, if anything, was stolen.

The second robbery happened about 45 minutes later in Upland, less than 5 miles (8 kilometers) away from the Ontario store.

The suspect approached the store clerk with a few items, “some drinks and things,” and brandished a semi-automatic handgun, Upland Sgt. Jake Kirk said. The man stole the items and about $400 to $500 in cash and fled. No shots were fired.

Surveillance photos, released by Upland and Brea police, show a masked man wearing a black sweatshirt with a hood over his head. The sweatshirt had white lettering with green leaves on the front.

While police in La Habra, Brea and Santa Ana have said they believe they are seeking the same suspect, officials in Ontario, Upland and Riverside have not yet made that determination though they said they were aware of the other crimes at 7-Eleven stores.

“It could potentially be the same person but we’re not confirming that at this time,” Kirk said.

About an hour after the Upland robbery and 25 miles (40 kilometers) away in Riverside, a gunman brandished a gun and robbed the 7-Eleven clerk, then turned the weapon on a customer, opened fire and fled, Railsback said. Police believe the clerk handed over cash from the register. The shooting victim was in grave condition.

“It doesn’t appear to be any reason that the suspect shot the customer,” Railsback said. “It sounds like the clerk gave him whatever he asked for.”

Railsback said criminals typically know that robberies at convenience stores rarely yield large amounts of money, especially during the overnight hours.

“If you go hit a liquor store or a 7-Eleven or a fast food place, you’re not going to get a lot of cash out of it,” he said. “It’s kind of odd that they would do this.”

Another shooting occurred around 3:20 a.m., about 24 miles (39 kilometers) away, in Santa Ana, authorities said.

Officers responding there reported gunfire and found a man dead in the 7-Eleven parking lot with a gunshot wound to his upper torso, according to Santa Ana Sgt. Maria Lopez.

“At this moment, we don’t believe he was an employee,” Lopez said of the victim. “We don’t really know yet what he was doing there in a parking lot, if he was a potential customer or just walking by.”

Surveillance video shows the suspect dropping items — believed to be the victim’s belongings — as he fled, Lopez said.

About 40 minutes later, a 7-Eleven employee in Brea was shot and killed, Brea Police Capt. Phil Rodriguez said.

Less than an hour later, officers in neighboring La Habra were sent to a reported robbery at a 7-Eleven. They discovered two gunshot victims around 4:55 a.m., according to Sgt. Sumner Bohee.

Authorities have not disclosed the victims’ conditions.

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COPENHAGEN, Denmark (AP) — A gunman opened fire inside a busy shopping mall in the Danish capital on Sunday, killing several people and wounding several others, police said.

A 22-year-old Danish man was arrested, Copenhagen police inspector Søren Thomassen told reporters, adding there was no indication that anyone else was involved in the attack, though police were still investigating.

Gun violence is relatively rare in Denmark.

Thomassen said it was too early to speculate on the motive for the shooting, which happened in the late afternoon at Field’s, one of the biggest shopping malls in Scandinavia and located on the outskirts of the Danish capital. When the shots rang out, some people hid in shops while others fled in a panicked stampede, according to witnesses.

“It is pure terror. This is awful,” said Hans Christian Stoltz, a 53-year-old IT consultant, who was bringing his daughters to see Harry Styles perform at concert scheduled for Sunday night near the mall. “You might wonder how a person can do this to another human being, but it’s beyond … beyond anything that’s possible.”

Thomassen gave no specific casualty count beyond saying several people were dead and several wounded. He said the suspect was an “ethnic Dane,” a phrase typically used to mean someone is white.

Danish broadcaster TV2 published a grainy photo of the alleged gunman, a man wearing knee-length shorts and a tank top and holding what appeared to be a rifle in his right hand.

“He seemed very violent and angry,” eyewitness Mahdi Al-Wazni told TV2. “He spoke to me and said it (the rifle) isn’t real as I was filming him. He seemed very proud of what he was doing.”

Copenhagen Mayor Sophie H. Andersen tweeted: “Terrible reports of shooting in Fields. We do not yet know for sure how many were injured or dead, but it is very serious.”

Images from the scene showed people running out of the mall, and TV2 posted a photo of a man being put on a stretcher. After the shooting, an enormous contingent heavily-armed police officers patrolled the area, with several fire department vehicles also parked outside the mall.

Laurits Hermansen told Danish broadcaster DR that he was in a clothing store at the shopping center with his family when he heard “three, four bangs. Really loud bangs. It sounded like the shots were being fired just next to the store.”

The shopping center is on the outskirts of Copenhagen just across from a subway station for a line that connects the city center with the international airport. A major highway also runs adjacent to the mall.

Organizers called off the Harry Styles concert, which had been scheduled at the nearby Royal Arena, by order of police.

On Snapchat, Styles wrote: “My team and I pray for everyone involved in the Copenhagen shopping mall shooting. I am shocked. Love H.”

The royal palace said a reception with Crown Prince Frederik connected to the Tour de France cycling race had been canceled. The first three stages of the race were held in Denmark this year. The reception was due to be held on the royal yacht that is moored in Soenderborg, the town where the third stage ended.

In a joint statement, Queen Margrethe, her son Crown Prince Frederik and his wife, Crown Princess Mary, said: “We do not yet know the full extent of the tragedy, but it is already clear that more people have lost their lives and that even more have been injured.”

“The situation calls for unity and care,” they said in a statement.

The shooting came a week after a mass shooting in neighboring Norway, where police said a Norwegian man of Iranian origin opened fire during a LGBTQ festival, killing two and wounding more than 20.

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OLYMPIA, Wash. (AP) — Washington Gov. Jay Inslee was quick to react to this week’s carnage at a Texas elementary school, sending a tweet listing the gun control measures the Democratic-controlled state has taken. He finished with: “Your turn Congress.”

But gun control measures are likely going nowhere in Congress, and they also have become increasingly scarce in most states. Aside from several Democratic-controlled states, the majority have taken no action on gun control in recent years or have moved aggressively to expand gun rights.

That’s because they are either controlled politically by Republicans who oppose gun restrictions or are politically divided, leading to stalemate.

“Here I am in a position where I can do something, I can introduce legislation, and yet to know that it almost certainly is not going to go anywhere is a feeling of helplessness,” said state Sen. Greg Leding, a Democrat in the GOP-controlled Arkansas Legislature. He has pushed unsuccessfully for red flag laws that would allow authorities to remove firearms from those determined to be a danger to themselves or others.

After Tuesday’s massacre at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 students and two teachers dead, Democratic governors and lawmakers across the country issued impassioned pleas for Congress and their own legislatures to pass gun restrictions. Republicans have mostly called for more efforts to address mental health and to shore up protections at schools, such as adding security guards.

Among them is Texas Gov. Greg Abbott, who has repeatedly talked about mental health struggles among young people and said tougher gun laws in places like New York and California are ineffective. In Tennessee, GOP Rep. Jeremy Faison tweeted that the state needs to have security officers “in all of our schools,” but stopped short of promising to introduce legislation during next year’s legislative session.

Wisconsin Gov. Tony Evers has called for universal background checks and “red flag” laws, only to be ignored by the Republican-controlled Legislature.

“We cannot accept that gun violence just happens,” Evers said in a tweet after the Texas school shooting. “We cannot accept that kids might go to school and never come home. We cannot accept the outright refusal of elected officials to act.”

On Wednesday, a day after the shooting, legislative Democrats asked that the Wisconsin gun safety bills be taken up again, to no avail. Instead, state Assembly Speaker Robin Vos, a Republican, told The Associated Press on Thursday that he is open to the idea of arming teachers to better protect schools, along with adding police and armed security guards.

In New Hampshire, the Republican-led House on Thursday rejected an effort to reintroduce legislation that would have required criminal background checks for commercial firearms sales.

Democratic state Rep. Debra Altschiller said there have been dozens of mass shootings nationwide since the bill was defeated in March.

“We can make a change so we don’t have to live like this,” she said, her remarks met by boos from some of her colleagues.

Their jeering turned to applause when Republican Rep. Terry Roy said voters don’t want further gun control: “We should not ever, ever use tragedy to push legislation,” he said.

An effort on Wednesday by Democratic lawmakers in Pennsylvania’s GOP-controlled Legislature to ban owning, selling or making high-capacity, semi-automatic firearms also failed, as House Republicans displayed their firm opposition to gun restrictions.

The situation is similar in Michigan, where Republicans have majorities in the Legislature. Democrats in the state Senate were thwarted Wednesday in their efforts to advance a group of bills that would have required gun owners to lock up their firearms and keep them away from minors.

“Every day we don’t take action, we are choosing guns over children,” said Democratic Sen. Rosemary Bayer, whose district includes a high school where a teenager was charged in a shooting that killed four in November and whose parents are charged with involuntary manslaughter, accused of failing to lock up their gun.

Republican state Sen. Ken Horn responded by urging discussion about other potential causes of gun violence.

“I would just point out that there are political solutions, but there are just as many spiritual solutions,” he said. “We don’t know what’s really happening in this world, what’s happening in this country, what’s happening to young men.”

Florida stands out as a Republican-controlled state that took action. The 2018 shooting at a high school in Parkland that left 14 students and three staff members dead prompted lawmakers there to pass a law with a red flag provision that lets law enforcement officers petition a court to confiscate guns from a person considered a threat.

Democrats want that expanded to allow family members or roommates to make the same request of the courts, but there has been little appetite among Republicans to amend the law. Instead, Republican Gov. Ron DeSantis said he wants lawmakers to allow people to carry handguns without a permit. The state currently requires a concealed weapons license.

While Republicans have supported red flag laws in some other states, most legislative action around gun control in recent years has been in states led by Democrats.

In Washington state, the governor earlier this year signed a package of bills related to firearm magazine limits, ghost guns and adding more locations where guns are prohibited, including ballot counting sites.

In California, Gov. Gavin Newsom and top Democratic legislative leaders on Wednesday vowed to fast-track gun legislation, identifying about a dozen bills they plan to pass this year. Newsom highlighted a bill that would let private citizens enforce a ban on assault weapons by filing lawsuits – similar to a law in Texas that bans most abortions through civil enforcement.

Oregon’s Democratically controlled Legislature has passed bills that require background checks, prohibit guns on public school grounds, allow firearms to be taken from those who pose a risk and ensure safe storage of firearms. On Wednesday, a group of six Democrats pledged additional action after the mass shooting in Texas and the racially motivated massacre in Buffalo, New York.

“We ran for office to solve big problems and make life better for our constituents — and that includes taking on the gun lobby and politicians that place profits and political power over children’s lives,” they said in a joint statement.

But there are limits even in some Democratic-controlled states, underscoring the challenge of gaining consensus to combat the rising frequency of mass shootings in the U.S.

Rhode Island has passed restrictions in recent years that include measures to ban firearms from school grounds and close the “straw purchasing” loophole that had allowed people to buy guns for someone else. But bills that would ban high-capacity ammunition magazines and assault weapons have been bottled up in committee, in part because the overwhelmingly Democratic chamber includes many lawmakers who have opposed the measures, citing their support for the Second Amendment.

In Connecticut, gun violence legislation supported by both parties passed soon after 20 children and six staff members were shot and killed at Sandy Hook Elementary Schoo l in 2012. But additional gun control measures stalled this year in the Democratic-led General Assembly, in large part because of a short legislative session and threats by Republicans to hold up legislation through a filibuster.

Democratic Gov. Ned Lamont said Wednesday he’s uncertain whether he will call a special session on the bills. They would put limits on bulk purchases of firearms and require the registration of so-called ghost guns, untraceable firearms that can be assembled at home.

“I think it’s become an incredibly partisan argument right now in our society,” Lamont said. “It wasn’t that way, you know, 30, 40 years ago. So that is disturbing, even in a state like Connecticut, where after Sandy Hook we had strong bipartisan support.”

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PROVIDENCE, R.I. (AP) — As the nation marked 1 million deaths from COVID-19 last week, the milestone was bookended by mass shootings that killed people simply living their lives: grocery shopping, going to church, or attending the fourth grade. The number, once unthinkable, is now an irreversible reality in the United States — just like the persistent reality of gun violence that kills tens of thousands of people every year.

Americans have always tolerated high rates of death and suffering — among certain segments of society. But the sheer numbers of deaths from preventable causes, and the apparent acceptance that no policy change is on the horizon, raises the question: Has mass death become accepted in America?

“I think the evidence is unmistakable and quite clear. We will tolerate an enormous amount of carnage, suffering and death in the U.S., because we have over the past two years. We have over our history,” says Gregg Gonsalves, an epidemiologist and professor at Yale who, before that, was a leading member of the AIDS advocacy group ACT UP. He made his comments in an interview last week, before the latest massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, where 21 people were killed on Tuesday, including 19 children.

“If I thought the AIDS epidemic was bad, the American response to COVID-19 has sort of … it’s a form of the American grotesque, right?” Gonsalves says. “Really — a million people are dead? And you’re going to talk to me about your need to get back to normal, when for the most part most of us have been living pretty reasonable lives for the past six months?”

Certain communities have always borne the brunt of higher death rates in the United States. There are profound racial and class inequalities in the United States, and our tolerance of death is partly based on who is at risk, said Elizabeth Wrigley-Field, a sociology professor at the University of Minnesota who studies mortality.

“Some people’s deaths matter a lot more than others,” she lamented in an interview last week. “And I think that’s what we’re seeing in this really brutal way with this coincidence of timing.”

In the shooting in Buffalo, New York, on May 14, the alleged shooter was a racist bent on killing as many Black people as he could, according to authorities. The family of 86-year-old Ruth Whitfield, one of 10 people killed there in an attack on a grocery store that served the African American community, channeled the grief and frustration of millions as they demanded action, including passage of a hate crime bill and accountability for those who spread hateful rhetoric.

“You expect us to keep doing this over and over and over again — over again, forgive and forget,” her son, former Buffalo Fire Commissioner Garnell Whitfield, Jr., told reporters. “While people we elect and trust in offices around this country do their best not to protect us, not to consider us equal.”

In the handful of days after the shooting in Buffalo, a man 1,700 miles away in Texas legally purchased one AR-style rifle, then another, along with 375 rounds of ammunition, according to state senators briefed by law enforcement. He then carried out the attack on Robb Elementary. Just 10 days had passed.

The sense that politicians have done little even as the violence repeats itself is shared by many Americans. It’s a dynamic that’s encapsulated by the “thoughts and prayers” offered to victims of gun violence by politicians unwilling to make meaningful commitments to ensure there really is no more “never again,” according to Martha Lincoln, an anthropology professor at San Francisco State University who studies the cultural politics of public health.

“I don’t think that most Americans feel good about it. I think most Americans would like to see real action from their leaders in the culture about these pervasive issues,” said Lincoln, who spoke before the attack on the school in Texas, and who adds that there is a similar “political vacuum” around COVID-19.

The high numbers of deaths from COVID-19, guns and other causes are difficult to fathom and can start to feel like background noise, disconnected from the individuals whose lives were lost and the families whose lives were forever altered.

American society has even come to accept the deaths of children from preventable causes.

In a recent guest column published in The Advocate newspaper, pediatrician Dr. Mark W. Kline pointed out that more than 1,500 children have died from COVID-19, according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, despite the “myth” that it is harmless for children. Kline wrote that there was a time in pediatrics when “children were not supposed to die.”

“There was no acceptable pediatric body count,” he wrote. “At least, not before the first pandemic of the social media age, COVID-19, changed everything.”

There are many parallels between the U.S. response to COVID-19 and its response to the gun violence epidemic, according to Sonali Rajan, a professor at Columbia University who researches school violence.

“We have long normalized mass death in this country. Gun violence has persisted as a public health crisis for decades,” she said last week, noting that an estimated 100,000 people are shot every year and some 40,000 will die.

Gun violence is such a part of life in America now that we organize our lives around its inevitability. Children do lockdown drills at school. And in about half the states, Rajan said, teachers are allowed to carry firearms.

When she looks at the current response to COVID-19, she sees similar dynamics. Americans, she said, “deserve to be able to commute to work without getting sick, or work somewhere without getting sick, or send their kids to school without them getting sick.”

“What will happen down the line if more and more people get sick and are disabled?” she asked. “What happens? Do we just kind of live like this for the foreseeable future?”

It’s important, she said, to ask what policies are being put forth by elected officials who have the power to “attend to the health and the well-being of their constituents.”

“It’s remarkable how that responsibility has been sort of abdicated, is how I would describe it,” Rajan said.

The level of concern about deaths often depends on context, says Rajiv Sethi, an economics professor at Barnard College who has written about both gun violence and COVID-19. He points to a rare but dramatic event such as an airplane crash or an accident at a nuclear power plant, which do seem to matter to people.

By contrast, something like traffic deaths gets less attention. The government last week said that nearly 43,000 people had died on the nation’s roads last year, the highest level in 16 years. The federal government unveiled a national strategy earlier this year to combat the problem.

Even when talking about gun violence, mass shootings get a lot of attention but represent a small number of the gun deaths that happen in the United States every year, Sethi said in an interview last week. For example, there are more suicides from guns in America than there are homicides, an estimated 24,000 gun suicides compared with 19,000 homicides. But even though there are policy proposals that could help within the bounds of the Second Amendment, he says, the debate on guns is politically entrenched.

“The result is that nothing is done,” Sethi said. “The result is paralysis.”

Dr. Megan Ranney of Brown University’s School of Public Health calls it a frustrating “learned helplessness.”

“There’s been almost a sustained narrative created by some that tells people that these things are inevitable,” said Ranney, an ER doctor who did gun violence research before COVID-19 hit, speaking before Tuesday’s Texas school shooting ended 21 lives. “It divides us when people think that there’s nothing they can do.”

She wonders if people really understand the sheer numbers of people dying from guns, from COVID-19 and from opioids. The CDC said this month that more than 107,000 Americans died of drug overdoses in 2021, setting a record.

Ranney also points to false narratives spread by bad actors, such as denying that the deaths were preventable, or suggesting those who die deserved it. There is an emphasis in the United States on individual responsibility for one’s health, Ranney said — and a tension between the individual and the community.

“It’s not that we put less value on an individual life, but rather we’re coming up against the limits of that approach,” she said. “Because the truth is, is that any individual’s life, any individual’s death or disability, actually affects the larger community.”

Similar debates happened in the last century about child labor laws, worker protections and reproductive rights, Ranney said.

An understanding of history is important, said Wrigley-Field, who teaches the history of ACT UP in one of her classes. During the AIDS crisis in the 1980s, the White House press secretary made anti-gay jokes when asked about AIDS, and everyone in the room laughed. Activists were able to mobilize a mass movement that forced people to change the way they thought and forced politicians to change the way they operated, she said.

“I don’t think that those things are off the table now. It’s just that it’s not really clear if they’re going to emerge,” Wrigley-Field said. “I don’t think giving up is a permanent state of affairs. But I do think that’s where we’re at, right at this moment.”

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DETROIT (AP) — When Andre Avery drives his commercial truck through Detroit, he keeps his pistol close.

Avery, 57, grew up in the Motor City and is aware that homicides and shootings are surging, even though before the pandemic they were dropping in Detroit and elsewhere. His gun is legal, and he carries it with him for protection.

“I remain extremely alert,” said Avery, who now lives in nearby Belleville. “I’m not in crowds. If something looks a little suspicious, I’m out of there.”

In Detroit, Chicago, New York, Philadelphia and even smaller Grand Rapids, Michigan, and Milwaukee, 2020 has been deadly not only because of the pandemic, but because gun violence is spiking.

Authorities and some experts say there is no one clear-cut reason for the spike. They instead point to social and economic upheaval caused by the COVID-19 virus, public sentiment toward police following George Floyd’s death in Minneapolis police custody and a historic shortage of jobs and resources in poorer communities as contributing factors. It’s happening in cities large and small, Democrat and Republican-led.

Two years ago, Detroit had 261 homicides — the fewest in decades. That year there were about 750 nonfatal shootings in the city of more than 672,000.

But with only a few days left in 2020, homicides already have topped 300, while non-fatal shootings are up more than 50% at more than 1,124 through the middle of December.

“I think the pandemic — COVID — has had a significant emotional impact on people across the country,” Detroit Police Chief James Craig said. “Individuals are not processing how they manage disputes. Whether domestics, arguments, disputes over drugs, there’s this quickness to use an illegally carried firearm.”

About 7,000 guns had been seized through mid-December in Detroit, with more than 5,500 arrests for illegal guns. There were 2,797 similar arrests last year.

“I’ve not seen a spike like this. But when it’s happening in other cities — some smaller — what do we all have in common?” Craig said of the slayings and shootings. “That’s when you start thinking about COVID.”

Washington, D.C., a city of about 700,000, has seen more than 187 homicides this year, eclipsing last year’s total by more than 20. Among the most horrible: A 15-month-old baby boy was shot to death during a drive-by shooting.

“We’re all sick of the heinous crimes in our city,” said Mayor Muriel Bowser.

Crime in parts of the U.S. dropped during the early weeks of the pandemic when stay-at-home orders closed businesses and forced many people to remain indoors.

University of Pennsylvania economics professor David Abrams said crime began to spike in May and June when initial orders in some states were lifted.

Some people “may have been a little stir crazy,” Abrams said. “At the end of May, George Floyd’s killing led to protests and looting. That led to police reform movements. Any of that could have potentially affected individual behavior and also the police response to that.”

Calls for some cities to reduce funding for police departments may have led some officers to take a less aggressive approach to policing, he added.

What the COVID-19 virus did was exacerbate all of the frustration and anger that some in Black and brown communities already were dealing with, according to retired Michigan State University sociology professor Carl Taylor. The virus has killed more than 300,000 people across the country, with minority communities hardest hit.

“The COVID has been absolutely the trigger of an everlasting bomb that’s exploding in many parts of our community,” he added.

Nowhere is that more true than inside people’s homes. “The COVID crisis and the economic shutdown is forcing people into their homes, creating conditions where people are more volatile,” said Kim Foxx, the top prosecutor in Cook County, which includes Chicago. And the most jarring statistic that illustrates that volatility is this: The number of domestic-related homicides in the nation’s third-largest city are up more than 60% compared with last year.

President Donald Trump claimed spiking crime was somehow related to massive protests over police brutality that swept the nation this year, but the majority of those protests were peaceful. Trump also claimed the crime was concentrated in Democratic-run cities, but there have been spikes in Republican-run cities as well. Federal agents and resources were poured into Detroit and a number of other cities this summer to help local authorities collar the rising crime rates.

By early October, more homicides — 363 — were recorded in Philadelphia than the 356 committed in 2019. There were 354 killings in New York through Oct. 11 — 90 more than at the same time last year.

Between Jan. 1 and Nov. 5, 165 homicides were recorded in Milwaukee, the most since 1991. And in Chicago, after three years of falling homicide numbers, the totals skyrocketed to 739 in mid-December compared with 475 at the same point last year.

Even smaller cities like Grand Rapids are suffering. By mid-December there were 35 homicides compared with 16 through all of 2019 and nine the year before. From this January to October, non-fatal shootings topped 200 in the city, which is home to about 200,000 people. Over the same period last year there were 131 non-fatal shootings.

“This year, is it because of COVID? The political polarization we have seen?” asked Sgt. Dan Adams, spokesman for the Grand Rapids Police Department. “This year has been a year like no other. I don’t think you can point to any one ‘why.’”

It is the same for other mid-sized cities. Last year, there were 18 homicides in Rockford, a city of about 170,000 people in northern Illinois. More than 30 have been killed so far this year, including three Saturday at a bowling alley.

“As we come to the end of this most difficult year and we look ahead at this New Year upon us, we know that this type of violence needs to stop,” Rockford Mayor Tom McNamara said.

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The shooting occurred on the patio of Duke’s Bar and Grill at 3221 Iowa Ave. at about 10:15 p.m., according to Riverside police spokesman Officer Ryan Railsback.

Investigators learned that two men got into an argument on the patio of Duke’s, Railsback said. The suspect was then asked to leave the patio by bar security. He returned a few minutes later with a gun, opening fire.

The victim died at the scene. He was not identified.

A second person later checked into a hospital with a gunshot wound to the leg he may have sustained during the shooting, Railsback said.

The suspect, meanwhile, fled and remains at large. It’s unclear if investigators have his name. No description of him was released.

The nature of the argument which prompted the shooting was not confirmed.

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In San Jacinto, On October 5, there was a deadly shooting in a Motel, then on October 8 a father and son shooting during a family disturbance and on October 9 a clerk in a smoke shop was gunned down, and only two more weeks before the month is out. How many more gun related tragedies must we endure in October?

Single or multiple shootings have become commonplace in our American society that we no longer feel outrage, instead we placidly go about our business as these events ricochet within our brain before they spill onto the floor, to be swept away and forgotten.

Must we resign ourselves to this phenomenon that seems exclusive of the United States of America? Some will argue that mass killings take place all over the world, yes agreed, but under an entirely different set of circumstances. In war torn countries people die as a result of shooting between opposing factions; in dictatorships, people are shot when they speak out against their oppressors; and in countries where organized crime has taken over, people get shot when they get in the way of battles between gangs and the police. Killing of innocent bystanders in any event is equally reprehensible.

Nowhere but in America however, does an assassin willfully and consciously pick up a gun, of which he probably has an extensive collection to go out and shoot human beings at random. Why do we not really care?

Is it possible that possessing a gun is more important than the lives lost of our sons, daughters, mothers, and fathers? Is our sense of security really enhanced by having in our possession a fire-arm that in many cases for reasons of safety is probably unloaded and under lock and key? Are the marketing and public relations departments of weapons manufacturers, as well as the congressional gun lobby more powerful than the average voting citizen who is unstoppable when united in a common front? Can we organize like the people who are fighting against the seemingly constant increase in the cost of medications?

Something is for sure. For the safety of our children who have no “dog in the fight”, who depend on the grown-ups to protect them from all kinds of danger, we need to come to the realization that reducing the number of guns in this country, is imperative to our survival.

The motives behind the murders expressed in the first paragraph of this article should not be disconnected from the greater issue which is the ease with which a lethal weapon can be acquired in America. Had there been greater legal control over the purchase of firearms, these events would probably not have occurred.

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