After two weeks of silence on the Virginia Tech massacre, the gun control movement is finally starting to make some noise.

Virginia Governor Tim Kaine on Monday issued an executive order aimed at providing more information to gun sellers about a potential buyer’s mental health. It’s a move that proponents say would have stopped Seung Hui Cho, who had been declared dangerously mentally ill by a court in 2005, from gunning down more than 30 people at the school April 16.

Gun dealers have access to a Virginia database that lists people who are involuntarily admitted to mental hospitals, but since Cho was sent to an outpatient treatment center, he fell through the cracks. The executive order is aimed at closing that loophole.

But the rumblings of the gun control movement may end there. Nationwide, there has been virtual silence on the issue, a strange contrast to the national furor that followed the Columbine High School massacre in 1999. Even in Virginia, the site of the shootings, the likelihood of a fierce battle over gun rights in the coming months appears small.

Virginia’s supposedly lax gun laws have been the focus of debate following the shootings. The state doesn’t require any permit to buy a handgun or to carry one openly, and concealed handgun permits are fairly easy to come by. Also, anti-gun advocates complain that background checks are not required at many gun transactions, such as gun shows.

The shootings are likely to prompt some squabbling over some of the state’s gun laws in the coming Virginia General Assembly session—items such as the oft-discussed gun show loophole.

But with more than two weeks past since the tragedy, no major fight over the state’s gun laws is appearing on the horizon. State Senator Ken Stolle, R-Virginia Beach and chairman of the Senate Courts of Justice Committee, which oversees gun legislation, says it will be mostly business as usual in the assembly.

“Clearly, there will be a lot of debate,” said Stolle, quoted in the Virginian-Pilot. “But most people who serve up here have heard these issues before and have already cast votes on them.”

The earthquake that followed the Columbine massacre has been matched by a mere tremor after Virginia Tech, not just in Virginia but also nationwide.

There have been murmurs elsewhere. New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg is running ads attacking the Tiahrt amendment—an attachment to the House appropriations bill by Republican U.S. Representative Todd Tiahrt of Kansas—which “prevents federal authorities from sharing gun-trace data with local law enforcement,” according to the Associated Press. Bloomberg says this makes it difficult for law enforcement to get the information they need, but gun advocates say it protects the privacy of gun owners.

There’s also been talk in Congress, according to the Washington Post, of strengthening the federal mental health database, which only 22 states contribute to. Proponents hope that requiring states to share more complete information about a potential gun buyer will prevent a repeat of the Virginia Tech experience.

But overall, the earthquake that followed the Columbine massacre has been matched by a mere tremor after Virginia Tech, not just in Virginia but also nationwide. The discussion surrounding current gun control laws center around the sharing of information, not on whether the number of guns needs to be reduced overall.

Westernized countries across the world—some of which have banned personally-owned guns altogether—look askance at the United States. There are an estimated 200 million guns in America, and getting them isn’t a difficult process in most states. As of last year, concealed carry permits are available in 39 states on a “shall issue” basis, meaning that officials can’t arbitrarily deny an application. In nine states, applicants must demonstrate need, but the permits are still available. And in Alaska and Vermont, no permit is required. Only two states—Wisconsin and Illinois—and the District of Columbia don’t allow concealed weapon permits at all.

It has been only two weeks since the massacre, so the new Democratic majority may simply be biding its time. But there are signs that Democrats have given up on a strong national push against guns in society, and their recent silence may stretch longer than just the immediate weeks after a national tragedy.

For example, conservatives might label new House Speaker Nancy Pelosi an “anti-gun extremist,” but when asked about her response to the Virginia Tech killings, all she had to say to ABC News was, “The mood in Congress is one of mourning, sadness and the inadequacy of our words. That’s all we’re focusing on right now.”

That’s it. No calls for national gun control. No speeches about how she’s had enough of the gun violence in America. Just scripted condolences and a non-commitment to action.

It’s not just the Virginia Tech shooting that has challenged the gun control lobby. D.C.’s 30-year gun ban was struck down earlier this year by a federal appeals court, and the loudest critics have been local officials.

The National Rifle Association today boasts four million members and growing, and it’s not just the fatigue-wearing the-government’s-after-me crazies. Democrats know this, which is why they’ve been cozying up to them in an effort to return to power after being shut out of Congress for 12 years.

One of the first signs of this shift in the Democratic Party was in 2005, when Howard Dean was appointed to chair the Democratic Party. As much as conservatives hate him, he is pro-gun. So is the new Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid (D-Nevada), who publicly expressed his hope that the Virginia Tech tragedy would not result in an immediate push for gun control.

At the Democratic Presidential Debate in South Carolina last week, when the seven candidates were asked who owned a gun at one point in their lives, only New York Senator Hillary Clinton and Illinois Senator Barack Obama didn’t raise their hands.

In fact, the NRA’s highest-rated presidential candidate in either party is New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, a Democrat.

So has gun control, in the words of Ronald Reagan, been relegated to the “ash heap of history”? Certainly not. Like abortion, gun control is a perpetually volatile issue that is impossible to ignore because it affects our everyday lives.

And there’s still a possibility the Democrats may take up the cause again. But with more and more pro-gun Democrats taking the reins of the party, the left seems to have given up on the issue on a national level.

As long as there are Columbines and Virginia Techs, the anti-gun advocates will continue to press on. But their appeals are falling on ever-deafening ears.

Daniel P. Taylor is a freelance writer living in Falls Church, Virginia.

Image credit: Photo by Stephen Witherden