The response to the fatal shootings of two journalists in Virginia feels depressingly familiar: the same calls from Democrats to ramp up gun control; the same calls from Republicans to blame mental illness; the same Onion article popping up on friends’ Facebook feeds: “‘No Way To Prevent This,’ Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens.”

By the end of the day on Wednesday, expressions of grief, horror, and anger gave way to resignation. One tweet in particular made the rounds: “In retrospect Sandy Hook marked the end of the U.S. gun control debate. Once America decided killing children was bearable, it was over,” wrote Dan Hodges, a commentator for The Telegraph. The tweet was written in June, shortly after the Charleston church murders. But that just drove home the point: It didn’t matter how much time had passed, since nothing was going to change in Washington anyway.

Indeed, the last major push in Congress to address gun violence ended in April 2013, when Republican lawmakers successfully filibustered a proposal to strengthen background checks, effectively killing off hope for greater gun control in Washington.

Outside the Beltway, however, there have been some signs of change. Since the Sandy Hook shooting in December 2012, a handful of blue states have embraced universal background checks to close the loophole for private gun sales. And some red states have moved to prevent certain types of individuals, such as domestic abusers or the mentally ill, from obtaining firearms.

These changes have been pushed by a number of new groups that formed in recent years. Former Rep. Gabby Giffords and her husband Mark Kelly created Americans for Responsible Solutions in 2013, and New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is backing Everytown for Gun Safety, which was founded in 2006. “We took a page out of the NRA’s playbook and started putting pressure on businesses and state legislatures to really move the needle,” said Shannon Watts, the founder of Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America, which is part of the Bloomberg-backed group.