Gun Violence in America Could Soon Get Worse

Over the past decade, amid rising mass shootings and fierce debate over America’s gun laws, the claim that “nothing ever changes” became a political cliché. The frustration was aimed in particular at the federal government—foremost at the failure by Congress to mandate a stronger and more comprehensive background-check system for gun buyers, a policy with long-standing bipartisan support among Americans, including gun owners. Much has changed in recent years, in fact, at the state and local levels, where governments adopted hundreds of regulations either tightening or loosening restrictions on firearms, a mix defined largely along partisan...