Dean Winslow sat before the Senate Armed Services Committee last fall as President Donald Trump’s nominee to serve as the Pentagon’s top health official. His confirmation hearing, occurring two days after an Air Force veteran shot and killed 26 people inside a Texas church, appeared routine until a senator asked a question about the gunman’s military discharge status.

Dr. Winslow, a professor of medicine at Stanford University who deployed six times to Iraq and Afghanistan with the Air National Guard, offered his thoughts on the military’s discharge system. The retired colonel then added a personal aside born of outrage at the country’s latest mass shooting.

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The inertia has motivated a handful of states to act. David Studdert, a professor of medicine and law at Stanford University, asserts that the prospects of policy change at the state level could improve as SAFE, AFFIRM, and other organizations amass fresh data on gun violence.

“The political climate is not really ripe for federal legislation,” says Dr. Studdert, who has joined researchers at UC Davis to analyze whether owning a gun in California affects the likelihood of a person’s death. “But what happened after Parkland shows there is momentum for change, and physicians are a powerful constituency. White coats showing up in Sacramento could make a difference.”