Congressional Democrats’ latest push for gun control has landed in Washington with a thud. In the wake of mass shootings in Colorado and California, Republicans have once again voted down universal background checks, blocking the same measure that they defeated after the Sandy Hook shooting in 2012. They’ve also voted down a new Democratic bill to ban people on terror watch lists from buying guns—a proposal that some on the left have also criticized as an ineffective gun-control measure that would curtail Americans’ liberties.

The obstacles to progress at the federal level have prompted gun-control advocates to look for new work-arounds: While President Obama is moving forward on executive action to expand background checks, activists are pushing new measures on the state level, where they’ve been actually able to make some concrete gains. Blue states are moving to tighten their gun laws even more: On Thursday, Connecticut’s Daniel Malloy became the first governor in the country to ban those on terror watch lists from buying guns through an executive order; California legislators are calling for their state to take similar steps.

But many of the same political obstacles that have blocked gun control in Washington are stopping such measures in the statehouses and governor’s mansions, where Republicans have made historic gains during the Obama era. So gun-control advocates are aiming to put the question directly to voters in 2016, to step around recalcitrant elected officials and to build a broader, long-term movement to support gun control. But they can only make limited progress without changing legislators’ minds—or electing new ones who agree with them.

Gun-control advocates are backing 2016 ballot initiatives in Maine and Nevada that would mandate background checks for private gun sales. Both campaigns arose after the states’ Republican governors, Paul LePage and Brian Sandoval, vetoed background-check bills that had made their way through the state legislatures. “We’re not doing this because of a specific recent tragedy, we’re doing this because of a long, long history of inaction,” says Matthew McTighe, who’s working on the Maine measure as a consultant for Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense, an advocacy group affiliated with Michael Bloomberg’s Everytown for Gun Safety. Activists are hoping to replicate the success they had in Washington state, which became the first to pass universal background checks through a ballot measure in 2014, with 60 percent of the vote.

Some blue states are using ballot measures to move the goalposts further: California Lieutenant Governor Gavin Newsom, who’s planning to run for governor in 2018, is spearheading a ballot measure that would require background checks for purchasing ammunition—a measure that New York passed in 2013, but then quietly suspended in a deal between Governor Andrew Cuomo and state Republicans. There is mixed evidence as to whether ammo background checks would be an effective way to reduce gun violence or help law enforcement track criminals. But the use of high-capacity weapons and mass casualties in recent shootings could make the reform politically appealing. The ballot measure would also prohibit the possession of high-capacity magazines, which are already illegal in California to import, manufacture, or purchase. Advocates expect to begin signature-gathering early next year in the state, which already has some of the strictest gun laws in the country.

