Democrats rush to push gun safety laws after mass shootings as Republicans stall

With Republicans stonewalling for years on any significant federal gun safety legislation, some states are now rushing to take steps themselves following large-scale shootings in New York and Texas this month.

Military-style assault rifles were used in Buffalo and last week in the school shooting in Uvalde, south Texas, by 18-year-olds in both tragedies, Hochul pointed out.

An initial package of bills Newsom has committed to signing include restrictions on advertising of firearms to minors, curbs ghost guns, establish rights of action to limit spread of illegal assault weapons, and the right for governments and victims of gun violence to sue manufacturers and sellers of firearms.

However, few Republican-controlled states have followed their lead. Conservative lawmakers in Pennsylvania and Michigan prevented efforts to introduce votes on gun safety legislation, while officials in Texas including the hard-right governor Greg Abbott, have blamed the school massacre there on a gunman with mental health problems, not the fact that he was legally able to buy semi-automatic rifles and hundreds of rounds of ammunition as soon as he turned 18 earlier this year.

At the federal level, a group of bipartisan senators have said they would work through the weekend to reach agreement on steps to limit access to guns, although there are no big moves afoot to ban assault weapons, as Vice-President Kamala Harris called for anew on Saturday, or raise the eligibility age to 21.