In Capitols and Courthouses, No End to National Divide Over Gun Policy

Less than a month after 19 children and two teachers died in the elementary school shooting last year in Uvalde, Texas, the U.S. Senate passed the most significant gun control bill since the long-expired federal ban on assault weapons.

The very same day, June 23, the Supreme Court upended gun policy in jurisdictions with some of the country’s strictest laws, like New York, Washington, D.C. and California, saying for the first time that people have the right to carry guns outside their homes.

In a country already raw with anger over gun policy, the new law from Congress and the sweeping decision by the Supreme Court only intensified the national fight over guns, spurring fresh legal challenges and legislative debates in courts and statehouses across the country.

And in the year since Uvalde — the deadliest school shooting since the 2012 massacre in Newtown, Conn. — both sides of the issue have made gains and endured setbacks as they seek to define the role of guns in American life.