But even in the minority, the party still has enough sway to prevent the Biden administration from passing meaningful federal legislation on guns. Restrictions vary from state to state; notably, Washington D.C.’s relatively strict rules may have discouraged some Trump rioters from bringing weapons to the Capitol, perhaps helping avert a full-out armed attack. Yet this month in Florida, the state senate advanced legislation to allow guns in houses of worship; it’s known as the “bible-and-bullets” bill. Stanford Law Professor John J. Donohue believes the Supreme Court will soon expand the Second Amendment by asserting there’s a constitutional right to carry guns anywhere outside the home, extending to automatic weapons and high-capacity magazines. “If such a ruling were to be handed down, most useful existing state gun-control laws would be wiped out,” he says. Far from being taken away, guns are proliferating; far from tightening, restrictions on guns are likely to loosen. Our “gun problem” is not a problem so much as a condition of American life—and in its apparent permanence, a dangerously debilitating one.