While the outspoken sheriff, various newspaper editorials and a sprinkling of Democrats, are calling for a toughening of gun control laws in the wake of the Gabrielle Giffords shooting, most political observers say any such change is highly unlikely. 

"Years ago, incidents of mass murder by gun-wielding assailants were followed by calls for tighter gun control. Sadly, would-be advocates of gun laws barely bother anymore," says Roger Lowenstein, a columnist for Bloomberg news.

 "It’s time to state the obvious: No safety rules, no inspections of rifles or demonstrations on how to keep your weapon well-oiled, will prevent a madman from killing innocents," says Lowenstein. "The hostile political climate may conceivably nourish violence, particularly in Arizona, where anti-immigrant sentiment is encouraged by many officeholders. But it’s doubtful that a more genteel political culture would pacify a would-be attacker with a history of mental illness."

"The surest way to prevent such acts of terror is to halt the distribution of semi-automatic weapons in the first place. In any sane country, semi-automatic weapons -- those that can be shot rapidly with repeated pulls of the trigger, without stopping to reload each time -- would be banned, period. They should be banned, for good, in the U.S."

New Jersey Democratic Senator Frank Lautenberg has stated he is working with Rep. Carolyn McCarthy (D-NY) on new laws that would ban the sale of high-capacity ammo clips like the one allegedly used by Jared Loughner who has been charged with attempted assassination of Giffords.

Arizona has some of the most lax gun laws in the country, allowing open carry of firearms even in bars.  Loughner legally bought his semi-automatic Glock and purchased the bullets at a local Wal-Mart for 22 cents each. “I have never been a proponent of letting everybody in this state carry weapons under any circumstances that they want, and that's almost where we are,” Sheriff Dupnik told Fox News.

"The type of magazine used by Mr. Loughner was once banned in the United States. But that brief era of sanity came to an end in 2004, when Congress refused to renew the assault-weapons ban passed in the summer of 1994. Democrats suffered huge defeats in the 1994 midterm elections, and many blamed their support for the gun-control measure, which the National Rifle Association adamantly opposed. Although that election turned on many controversies, including taxes, health-care reform and gays in the military, many Democrats took away a single message: Endorsement of even modest gun-control measures can spell political defeat," reads part of an angry editorial in The Washington Post. 

Indeed, Lautenberg and McCarthy seem to be about the only elected officials willing to even bring up the topic of new gun control laws.

The Hill magazine, which follows congress, says that passage of any new gun laws is "unlikely to morph into a campaign issue for 2012." 

"Gallup asked about the nation's gun laws in October of 2010 and found that, for the second year in a row, the number of Americans supporting stricter gun-control laws was at a record low. Just 44 percent said the laws should be tougher, while 42 percent said they should remain the same. Another 12 percent of respondents favored loosening restrictions on guns. Gallup's long-term data shows that the number of people favoring tighter gun laws has declined precipitously over the past five years. In response to the same question in October of 2005, Gallup found 57 percent of Americans in favor of stricter laws and just 35 percent who said the laws should remain the same. "Like we've seen in the past, my hunch is that there will be a moment of intensity on both sides," said pollster John Zogby. "But in the long run, the needle won't move much at all."
Surveys taken in the weeks after the 2007 mass shooting at Virginia Tech, for example, showed no significant increase in support for tighter gun laws."

See the video of Sheriff Dupnik speaking with Katie Couric here.