Pro-choice activists and reproductive rights supporters have been making their voices heard through mass protests in response to the Supreme Court’s Friday decision on Dobbs v. Jackson Women’s Health Organization, which effectively overturned 1973’s Roe v. Wade ruling that gave Americans a constitutional right to an abortion.

“It’s a betrayal against women,” Natasha Mitchell of Denver told CNN during an abortion rights protest in Colorado, a state that recently codified abortion rights into law. “I’m fortunate that I live in a state that respects the reproductive rights of women but I fear for women who don’t.”

The area around the Supreme Court building in Washington, DC, has been packed with throngs of protesters — as well as much smaller counterprotests — since the Supreme Court’s decision. Demonstrators supporting reproductive rights have also come out in force across the country in states like New York, Missouri, North Carolina, Oklahoma, and Michigan.

Lawmakers also joined the protesters. Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez (D-NY) appeared alongside abortion rights advocates at New York City’s Union Square protest on Friday. Ocasio-Cortez shared her own experience of sexual assault and called on President Joe Biden to create abortion clinics on federal land.

“I think one of the things that we know, too, is that there are also actions at President Biden’s disposal that he can mobilize,” Ocasio-Cortez told the crowd. “I’ll start with the babiest of the babiest of the baby steps: open abortion clinics on federal lands in red states right now.”

By Friday night, protests began to intensify in some areas, with much of the aggression tied to law enforcement response. In Arizona, law enforcement officials were captured on video deploying tear gas to clear out an estimated 7,000 protesters gathered outside the state Capitol in Phoenix. A police officer running for the state senate in Rhode Island was charged with assault after allegedly punching his campaign opponent at an abortion rights rally near the statehouse (the officer alleged that his opponent had become physical with him during the protest; she denied the allegation).

One woman in Iowa was also hospitalized after a man drove his truck toward a procession of abortion rights protesters crossing the street in downtown Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Several eyewitnesses said the driver became “impatient” and began maneuvering around other cars before driving into protesters; the incident is now the subject of an investigation by local authorities.

“I had to literally come down here today because I have nowhere to put my emotion, my fear, my anger, and my sorrow,” Jennifer Jonassen told the Los Angeles Times as she joined protesters in front of LA’s City Hall for the city’s second day of protests on Saturday.

On Saturday, the crowds in front of the Supreme Court had not relented, as thousands of abortion rights supporters continued to chant and wave signs around the building’s security parameter.

“I can’t believe that is what God intended, not the God that I serve,” Mary Tretola-Johnson told the Washington Post. “All I could think was ‘Not in America.’ It was overwhelming.”

Protests continued in cities like Columbus, Ohio, and Green Bay, Wisconsin on Sunday. In New York City, Sunday’s Pride Parade was kicked off by a group of marchers representing Planned Parenthood, who were cheered by onlookers.

Anti-abortion activists also rallied in the 48 hours since the court’s decision as they celebrated the fall of Roe v. Wade. Randall Terry, founder of the militant anti-abortion group Operation Rescue, likened its Dobbs ruling to the Allied forces’ Normandy invasion. Terry was one of a handful of counterprotesters outside the Supreme Court.

Since the announcement of the Supreme Court’s decision, at least eight states have already enacted near-total abortion legislation through special statutes known as “trigger laws,” essentially statutes that restrict abortion access which were activated, or “triggered,” at the moment Roe was overturned. More states — primarily those with Republican-controlled legislatures — are expected to soon expand abortion restrictions.

But it’s not only rights to abortion access that are under siege. Reproductive rights advocates and educators fear the next potential targets for right-wing politicians and activists may include access to contraception, assisted reproduction like IVF treatment, and even broader health care restrictions. Part of their concern stems from a concurrent Dobbs opinion written by Justice Clarence Thomas that claims the cases establishing a right to gay marriage and access to birth control were decided on shaky legal reasoning, and that the Court has “a duty to ‘correct the error.’” 

On Sunday, South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem, whose state was among several trigger law states, told CBS’s Face the Nation that South Dakota would enforce its ban on telemedicine abortions, which would prevent access to abortion medication prescribed online. US Attorney General Merrick Garland has previously stated the Department of Justice would protect both a person’s right to abortion and their access to abortion pills. That means a legal challenge to medication access, one that could have national ramifications, may be imminent.

Julia Feldman-DeCoudreaux, an Oakland-based school sex educator, told Vox that access to quality sex education could also suffer even more now, leaving young people vulnerable. “If that happens,” she said, “We’re going to have a catastrophic situation.”

Though the fall of Roe has been a crushing blow for abortion rights supporters, the weekend’s protests are a clear signal that many across the country have also found renewed strength to keep rallying for reproductive rights.

“We have to be proactive,” said Lura Van Sweden during an abortion rally at Michigan’s Capitol. Van Sweden, who marched for women’s rights in the 1960s, vowed to continue the fight. “Don’t quit. That’s what they want, for us to give up. I won’t give up.”

In 2020, while the US grappled with the onset of the Covid-19 pandemic, the country was experiencing another crisis: Gun violence became the top cause of death among young Americans.

Since the year prior, the rate of firearms-related deaths among American youths under 20 years old increased by 29.5 percent, which was twice as high as the relative increase of gun deaths among the US general population. Yet even with those alarming statistics on gun-related deaths among children, pro-gun rights lawmakers are calling to put more firearms in schools, as a remedy for the country’s school shooting crisis.

The tragic mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, last week renewed calls for stricter gun control legislation, after 19 children and two teachers were killed, and 17 others were injured in the attack. But conservatives and gun lobbyists argue the only way to solve the country’s epidemic of mass shootings is to put more guns in the hands of the public. Some have even called for arming teachers and school staff with firearms of their own.

Texas Attorney General Ken Paxton was among the first Republican elected officials to call for arming educators following the school shooting in Uvalde.

“We can’t stop bad people from doing bad things. We can potentially arm and prepare and train teachers and other administrators to respond quickly,” Paxton said during an appearance on Fox News. Former President Donald Trump, speaking at this year’s NRA convention on Friday amid heavy pushback in the wake of the Uvalde shooting, also called for “highly trained teachers to safely and discreetly conceal carry” firearms in school.

The idea of training teachers, whose primary job is to educate students on lessons like math and English, as an extra security defense against potential school shooters is not new and such training programs have existed for years in some form in many states.

There is also little evidence to suggest arming school staff actually makes schools safer. On the contrary, school safety advocates warn about the potential risks of encouraging teachers to carry guns at school — increasing the number of guns in schools, even if they were put in the hands of responsible educators, may increase the likelihood of gun-related harm. Studies have also shown a direct correlation between the presence of guns and increased gun violence.

Proposals to arm school teachers and staff have not received much support from educators, either. A survey of more than 2,900 teachers across the country by a researcher at California State University found that 95.3 percent of respondents believed teachers should not be carrying guns in the classroom. The National Education Association, the largest labor union in the US representing 3 million educators, has also criticized suggestions to arm teachers as an antidote to America’s school shootings.

“Bringing more guns into schools makes schools more dangerous and does nothing to shield our students and educators from gun violence,” NEA President Becky Pringle told the Guardian. “We need fewer guns in schools, not more. Teachers should be teaching, not acting as armed security guards.”

Still, current debates over gun laws might just accelerate legislation in states where teachers and other school staff are already permitted — even encouraged — to carry guns inside the classroom.

Hundreds of school staff are already armed in the US

In 2018, two high-profile school shootings in Parkland, Florida, and Santa Fe, Texas — both of which saw at least a dozen people killed or injured — prompted state-level lawmakers in 34 states and US territories to propose legislation targeted at arming school personnel.

According to the National Conference of State Legislatures, what followed was more than 100 pieces of legislation allowing for armed school teachers introduced by local lawmakers in the three years since the Parkland and Santa Fe shootings. While the majority of bills were not approved into law, over a third of these bills were introduced in the aftermath of the Parkland and Santa Fe shootings. Both Florida and Texas are among nine states where school staff (other than security) are exempt from firearms bans on K-12 school grounds.

Following the Santa Fe school shooting, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott expanded the state’s school marshals program which, since 2013, had allowed educators and school administrators to receive firearms training and a permit to carry their own guns on school grounds. Right now, there are about 256 school marshals across the state, according to the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement, which oversees the program.

In 2019, Florida Gov. Ron DeSantis, who is expected to run for president in 2024, signed into law a measure enabling schools to arm their teachers, expanding on an already existing program in the state which had allowed school districts to partner with local sheriff’s offices to train their personnel in firearms.

According to the Florida Department of Education’s website, 45 out of the state’s 67 counties have participated in the “guardians” program. Some have called for the state to expand the program following the school shooting in Uvalde last week.

These firearms training programs for school staff were largely established in response to the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting back in 2012. But so far the efficacy of these programs to deter gun violence has not been proven and school shootings have continued at an alarming rate: over 3,500 more mass shootings have happened since Sandy Hook.

There is no evidence to support arguments from pro-gun rights lawmakers that training and equipping teachers with guns will make students safer. A 2019 study by researchers at the University of Toledo and Ball State University reviewed 18 years of US school security measures — including placing more armed teachers in schools — and found no evidence of reduced gun violence.

Denise Gottfredson, a criminologist at the University of Maryland, called the policy of arming school personnel “ill-advised.” Beyond substantial research linking gun accessibility and increased gun violence, firearms brought into school by educators “might be fired accidentally, the teachers who carry them might deliberately use them for unintended purposes, and, even more likely, the guns might end up in the hands of students,” Gottfredson told Reuters.

Studies show more guns lead to more violence

The US is not the only country in the world where mass shootings have happened, but it is unique in how frequently these mass shootings occur within its borders.

In his widely cited 2016 study, Adam Lankford, a professor at the University of Alabama, analyzed data on global mass shootings between 1966 and 2012 and found that 31 percent of perpetrators in mass shootings worldwide during that time were American.

Adjusting for variables, Lankford also found that a country’s rate of gun ownership correlated with the odds of it having mass shootings. When it comes to gun ownership, the US is in a league of its own: the US population only makes up less than 5 percent of the global population, yet Americans account for about 45 percent of the world’s private gun ownership. It is estimated that US civilians own a total of 393 million firearms — meaning there are more guns in civilian hands than there are people.

Various other studies suggest guns don’t really deter crime and instead increase the likelihood of gun-related violence. In other words, more guns simply lead to more gun violence. In one study in 2015, for example, researchers at Boston Children’s Hospital and Harvard University found that firearm assaults were 6.8 times more common in states with the most guns compared to states with the least. There’s also been research suggesting a significant association between access to firearms at home and the likelihood of residents being murdered, compared to households without guns.

Research related to firearms and young kids paints an even bleaker picture. According to the Gun Violence Archive, a nonprofit that tracks and publishes information on gun violence in the US, more than 650 minors were killed by guns so far this year, while more than 1,600 youths have suffered firearms-related injuries.

A recent study published in the New England Journal of Medicine found that, as of 2020, gun-related injuries were the leading cause of death of young Americans, outpacing car crashes as the previous top cause. Internationally, the number of children killed by guns is 36.5 times higher in the US compared to other high-income countries like Sweden, Austria, and England.

But even with so much research and data pointing to various links between access to firearms and gun violence, there has not been much policy change when it comes to US gun laws. If anything, history shows firearms-related legislation has only gotten laxer, even when public opinion is overwhelmingly in favor of gun control legislation.

A holistic approach is needed to curb mass shootings, experts say

Looking at the evidence so far, it’s clear that a “hardening” of school security measures — focusing on surveillance, increasing police presence, and arming school staff with firearms — is not effective in curbing gun violence inside US schools. In fact, those kinds of investments, already the playbook response to past school shootings, have so far been ineffective.

Studies like the one from the University of Toledo show that schools face a litany of issues in trying to keep students safe, and that a multi-pronged approach not fixated on “beefing up” schools is needed, if school safety is to really improve.

“It’s not just guns. It’s not just security,” Jagdish Khubchandani, a co-author of the study, told the Texas Tribune. “It’s a combination of issues, and if you have a piecemeal approach, then you’ll never succeed.”

In 2009, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released a report emphasizing the need for improving “school connectedness” among school-aged adolescents — basically, ensuring that students feel connected with their school community — as a way to improve students’ safety. Students who feel more connected to their schools, the report suggests, were more likely to engage in healthy behaviors and less likely to participate in violence.

Researchers and anti-gun violence advocates have long pushed for changes that go beyond guns and security guards. Instead of arming teachers with guns, providing schools support so they can improve the emotional well-being of their students may be a better approach to solving the country’s school shootings crisis.

Whatever the next big debate around gun regulations will be, it’s clear that America’s old solutions to its gun problem have not worked.

“The rate of gun ownership hasn’t changed. And yet acts of evil like we saw this week are on the rise,” Texas Sen. Ted Cruz told crowds at the National Rifle Association’s convention in Houston this week. Cruz’s claim about stagnant gun ownership, which is factually misleading, is among the trove of inaccurate claims made by Republican officials at the NRA’s annual gathering this year, making clear that the string of mass shootings in recent weeks has not influenced their pro-gun convictions, in spite of several slated speakers canceling their participation.

The NRA kicked off its annual convention — featuring firearms exhibitions and speaking appearances from pro-gun Republican officials — on Thursday, only days after a gunman killed 19 school children and two teachers at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas. The group’s decision to go ahead with its yearly gathering drew thousands of protesters outside of the convention’s venue.

Texas governor hopeful Beto O’Rourke, the former Democratic presidential candidate who confronted current Texas Gov. Greg Abbott over the school shooting at a press conference this week, was among the protesters.

“I hope you agree with me, that the time for us to have stopped Uvalde was right after Sandy Hook,” O’Rourke told the crowd. “The time for us to have stopped Uvalde was right after Parkland. The time for us to have stopped Uvalde was right after Santa Fe High School. The time for us to stop mass shootings in this country is right now, right here, today.”

An estimated 4,000 protesters showed up outside of Houston’s George R. Brown Convention Center on Friday when ex-President Donald Trump and a string of high-profile Republican officials — including Cruz and South Dakota Gov. Kristi Noem — were expected to speak at the gun-lobbying event.

Multiple elected officials pulled out of their planned appearances at the NRA convention last minute, following heavy criticism.

“While a strong supporter of the Second Amendment and an NRA member, I would not want my appearance today to bring any additional pain or grief to the families and all those suffering in Uvalde,” Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick said in a statement posted on Twitter.

Gov. Abbott, who was scheduled to speak at the convention’s marquee “Leadership Forum,” opted instead to address attendees through a pre-recorded message. Sen. John Cornyn and Rep. Dan Crenshaw — both Texas Republicans — also backed out of the NRA gathering citing scheduling conflicts.

Despite the controversy surrounding its gathering, NRA leaders and supporters remained steadfast in their pro-gun stance, even as the public calls for stricter gun laws.

In his opening remarks, NRA chief executive Wayne LaPierre acknowledged the “21 beautiful lives ruthlessly and indiscriminately extinguished by a criminal monster” while still arguing that “restricting the fundamental human rights of law-abiding Americans to defend themselves is not the answer.”

Trump mocked Republicans who pulled out of the NRA convention

This year’s four-day event — the first NRA convention since the annual gathering’s prior postponements due to the pandemic — featured a line-up of high-profile speakers from the Republican Party railing against public calls for tougher gun laws.

Sen. Cruz, who is considered a potential contender for the GOP’s presidential ticket in 2024, dismissed enacting stronger gun policies such as universal background checks on gun purchases and banning assault rifles. Instead, Cruz blamed America’s gun violence epidemic on things like video games, declining church attendance, and social media.

“Tragedies like the event of this week are a mirror forcing us to ask hard questions, demanding that we see where our culture is failing,” Cruz said. “We must not react to evil and tragedy by abandoning the Constitution or infringing on the rights of our law-abiding citizens.”

Trump’s speech, meanwhile, was peppered with the typical jabs and gimmicks that colored his presidency. Firearms and other lethal weapons were banned from the general hall assembly during Trump’s speech, based on Secret Service security protocols.

Trump began his speech by mocking Republican officials for pulling out of the event.

“Unlike some others, I didn’t disappoint you by not showing up today,” Trump told the crowd. He then read out the names of the Uvalde shooting victims — each followed by a gong sound.

During his speech, Trump reinforced the same talking points Cruz did, focusing on other societal ills like “broken families” and mental health as the primary problems facing Americans. Trump also called for toughening school security measures — falsely claiming that gun-free zones made schools less safe — and praised Texas law enforcement despite reports revealing local police’s questionable response to the Uvalde school shooting.

During his appearance, Trump invited Jack Wilson, a man who had stopped a shooting at a Texas church in 2019, to join him on stage. Wilson said he “didn’t kill — I took out evil” and praised Trump, saying “you’re still our president.” 

The doubling-down on rhetoric about protecting the public’s right to bear arms by NRA leadership and its supporters, even as another group of schoolchildren is massacred by an assault weapon-wielding gunman, is part of a historical trend in the US response to mass shootings, as reported by Vox.

In 2020, a study in the Journal of Public Economics found that state-level responses following mass shootings heavily tilted toward loosening, not tightening, gun regulations.

As the authors wrote: “In states with Republican-controlled legislatures, a mass shooting roughly doubles the number of laws enacted that loosen gun restrictions in the year following the incident. We find no significant effect of mass shootings on laws enacted when there is a Democrat-controlled legislature.” The researchers also noted no significant effect on the number of tighter gun laws, meaning the country’s frequent mass shootings did little in the way of broadly spurring better gun control laws.

Controversy over the gathering is the latest to hit the NRA

The NRA has been one of the most influential lobbying groups in the US for decades. During the 1970s, the organization evolved from its original purpose as a gun safety advocacy group into a guns-first lobbying force. Since then, in order to maintain influence, the NRA has pushed legislation to slow down gun violence-related research and increase accessibility to gun ownership.

At the same time, the NRA has weathered increasing instability, brought on by factors both internal and external. A power struggle took place inside the organization in 2019 after then-NRA president Oliver North accused current CEO Wayne LaPierre of money embezzlement. Although the NRA continued to secure the support of conservative lawmakers in pushing its legislative agenda, internal discord fractured the group.

In spite of legislative wins, the NRA has experienced a massive loss of income in recent years. In 2018, the Daily Beast reported the NRA experienced a $55 million decline in income, based on its tax records from the year prior. The organization also recorded a decline of about 22 percent in membership dues that same year. More recently, between 2016 to 2020, the NRA’s revenue dropped 23 percent from about $367 million to $282 million, according to CBS News. Contributions from its members and private companies had also slipped 15 percent during that same period.

Beyond its internal woes, the NRA has also faced litigation. In August 2020, New York Attorney General Letitia James filed a lawsuit to dissolve the organization completely based on alleged mishandling of the nonprofit group’s finances by its executives. A judge blocked New York’s lawsuit to disband the NRA but ruled to allow the AG’s complaint over alleged illegal financial activities by NRA leadership to continue.

Separate from the NRA’s battles to maintain its influence, public opinion among Americans has shifted to becoming friendlier toward gun control proposals. Although opinions around gun law reforms have fluctuated in recent years, overall polls show a growing number of Americans support tougher gun laws.

A survey by Morning Consult and Politico, conducted last week after the Uvalde school shooting, showed 73 percent of those surveyed “strongly support” universal background checks.

Additionally, 84 percent of respondents stated they would support “preventing sales of all firearms” to people flagged as “dangerous” to law enforcement by mental health providers.

The overwhelming public support for better gun control laws shouldn’t come as a surprise after decades of repeated mass shootings in the US. As this interactive data map by Vox shows, as of July 2020, over 2,600 more mass shootings have happened in the decade since the Sandy Hook school shooting.

Still, despite overwhelming public support for stricter gun control regulations, pro-gun lawmakers appear unmoved in shifting toward gun law reforms, likely due to the millions of dollars worth of campaign donations from the NRA. According to Brady, one of the country’s largest gun violence prevention groups, the NRA spent $3.2 million on campaign contributions for pro-gun senators in 2019, and $2.2 million in 2020.

Despite setbacks the group has endured, some believe the NRA’s biggest legacy will outlast the organization itself, and that will likely continue to prevent any meaningful progress on the country’s gun reforms.

“Ultimately, the NRA is a profoundly weaker and more divided organization than it once was,” wrote Frank Smyth, an investigative journalist and author of the 2020 book The NRA: The Unauthorized History, for Politico. “But its legacy, even if it fails to survive, will be the culture and ideology of gun rights it helped cultivate, and that is a potent thing for many conservative voters and the Republican politicians who chase them.”