The recent school shooting in Uvalde, Texas shook countless people to the core, many of whom are now hoping that the incident will cause stricter gun laws to be set in place – but will it actually happen?

Although Texas already has some of the most permissive gun laws in the U.S, those laws have only further loosened in recent years. Multiple laws loosening gun restrictions have been signed in the last few years, such as the Texas state law in 2016 that legalized open carry of handguns. Only last year, Texas Governor Greg Abbot signed a law allowing people over the age of 21 to legally carry a handgun without a license or training. As a direct result of this, an 18-year old gunman entered the school grounds of an elementary school, where he then began to shoot and kill 19 children and 2 adults.

The public was stunned at first but is now advocating for stricter gun laws in Texas and the U.S overall. Unfortunately, though, despite there being spikes in the majority that are in favor of restricting gun laws, a large number of people in the U.S are against these restrictions.

For instance, the National Rifle Association (NRA), which thinks that gun control laws are flawed concepts that don’t work and that everyone who is a law-abiding citizen should be capable of carrying a gun. To validify their opinion, they take the The Right to Bear Arms into account. This is why it is so difficult to enforce stricter regulations, because it may go against the very basis of what the U.S is built on – the Constitution.

Despite contradicting opinions as to whether gun laws should remain the same or be restricted, President Joe Biden is strongly advocating for the latter. On June 2, Biden issued an appeal for stricter gun laws during his speech to the American people in the aftermath of multiple mass shootings throughout the country.

Included were a ban on assault weapons, tougher background check laws, and a higher minimum age of purchase. Biden was especially advocating for reinstating the assault weapon ban passed in 1994 – he also further emphasized the importance of the law and how mass shootings went down in the 10 years it was law. After Republicans let it expire in 2004, mass shootings tripled.

According to Biden, many Senate Republicans and their supporters don’t want these proposals to come up for a vote, or even be debated, which brings a question to mind. Will anything actually happen?

Biden has acknowledged that minimizing gun violence is a difficult task to achieve, but he is hopeful that the recent shootings in the U.S will be able to rally the nation together behind a unified plan to lessen gun violence after previous shootings failed to produce any meaningful laws. “

“For the children, we’ve lost, for the children, we can save, for the nation we love, let’s hear the call and the cry. Let’s meet the moment. Let us finally do something,” Biden said during his gun violence speech on June 2.