U.S. gun control: What's changed 6 months after Newtown?

When 20-year-old Adam Lanza entered Sandy HookElementarySchool in Newtown, Conn., six months ago, armed with a Bushmaster rifle and two handguns, many thought the subsequent massacre wouldforce substantial nationwide changes to American gun laws.

Butresults have been mixed, with some states tightening laws, some actually expanding gun rights, and federal initiatives being soundly defeated after the massacre that left 20 children and six educators dead.

"I just haven't been surprised. It's exactlywhat I expectedthat there will be a lotof noise and in the end little or nothing would happen," said George Mason University law professor Nelson Lund, an expert on the Second Amendment and who six months ago predicted that little would change.

Back in December, on the day of the shootings, U.S. President Barack Obama hinted that some kind of change to gun laws would be forthcoming. In an emotional statement, Obama pledged that "were going to have to come together and take meaningful action to prevent more tragedies like this, regardless of the politics."

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He followed up on that pledge by makinggun control one of his main priorities for his second term ofoffice. While the issue had barely registered during the presidential campaign, Obama began a determinedpush fora number of gun controlproposals, including the reinstatement of aban on assault-style rifles and the expansion offederal background checks on firearms buyers.

Of all his initiatives, those expanded background checks seemed to have the most support, with polls at the time showing nearly 90 per cent of Americansin favour ofsuch a move.

Legislation failed in Senate

But when the legislation came to the Senate inApril, it failed to get the 60 votes needed and allObama's major initiatives, including the background checks, were defeated and have remained stalled ever since.

Attitudesin thedebateovergun rights versus gun controlalso seem to be settling back to those that existed before the shooting. The Pew Research Center found that in the days after the school shooting, more people prioritized gun control over gun rights (49 per cent to 42 per cent). But now the public seems evenly divided (50 to 48).

However some gun control advocates say that progress to toughen gun laws is being made.

Inan op-ed Fridayfor the Los Angeles Times, Robyn Thomas and Juleit Leftwich, the executive director and legal director of the Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence, say that gun control is making headway state by state.

"Since the Newtown tragedy, gun regulation has made enormous gains in states across the country, with more on the horizon," they write. "In fact, an unprecedented number of gun control laws have been introduced, debated, voted on and enacted this year. What a difference Sandy Hook and six months have made."

Thomas and Letwich write that since the massacre,six states have strengthened their firearms laws, including Connecticut, Maryland and New York, which have beefed up background checks and limited the sale or transfer of military-style assault weapons and large-capacity ammunition magazines.

Delaware and Colorado, they noted, alsopassed laws requiring background checks on all gun sales and California beefed up its law to confiscate guns from criminals and the mentally ill.

Only 'marginal' changes

ButLund said the changes that have occurred in those statesseem to be relatively minor and in states that already have aggressive gun control laws.

"They've made them a little bit more aggressive but I'm not aware of anything really significant that's been done anywhere," he said.

InConnecticut, for example, the state in which the shooting took place,Lund said they"did toughen things up but it's very much at the margin."

"They adjusted their definition of a so-called assault weapon but not in any way that was very significant," he said. "They toughened up some ofthe penalties and that sort of thing but it looks more like a 'let's send a message' [public relations]stunt than anything else."

In some cases where the population is more supportive of gun rights they've actually expanded gun rights, he said. In fact, asurvey by the Wall Street Journal back in April found that in the aftermath ofthe Newtown tragedy,almost twice as manystates had passed laws to weaken gun laws rather than tighten them.

Lund saidhe believesObama's gun control measures failed because ultimately too many people in Congress, including the Senate, believe support for gun control will turn out to be a political loser for them.

Pew seems to back up that claim.Itfound that among those who prioritize gun rights, 41 per cent say they would not vote for a candidate with whom they disagreed on gun policy, even if they agreed with the candidate on most other issues. In comparison, fewer gun control supporters (31 per cent) say gun policy is a make-or-break voting issue for them, Pew found.

"A lot of times these bills are considered in Congress and they sound great in concept but if you really look atthem carefully,you can see whenit actuallybecomes law and put into effect, alot of your constituents are going to be quite unhappy."

Case in point, the background check proposal, which seemed to have tremendous support.

"When people do polls, they basically poll them on a general concept. And expanded background checks sounds like something harmless to most people," Lund said."Well there's a big difference between a general concept and a bill with legislative language in it.

"If Congress passes a law that says you can't sell your shotgun to your neighbour who you've known for 30 years without going though some expensive andtime-consuming bureaucratic process, you're liable to get upset."