The presidential election is 65 days away, and the gun policy debate has stagnated. But a high-profile shooting could change that.

To this point in 2024, there has not been a single mass shooting that meets The Violence Project’s definition where four or more people are killed in a random public attack. That is highly unusual because we’ve usually seen between five to ten mass shootings over the past decade. And since those are the kinds of shootings that tend to drive media coverage, we haven’t had a lot of national gun news.

Even beyond mass shootings, there have only really been two high-profile shootings this year. The first was the Super Bowl parade shooting. And that was back in March, months before President Joe Biden would even drop out of the race. It was too early, and the details were too disconnected from the political gun debate to make much of a lasting impact on the race.

If a major shooting happens between now and election day, things would probably be very different. It would likely cause a flood of attention that could easily rocket the issue to the top of mind for voters and change the dynamic of the race.

The campaign has seen its share of unprecedented developments and swings, but, now that we’re through the conventions, each side has pretty well established its approach to guns. Donald Trump and Republicans have stuck by pro-gun positions, but they’ve also actively avoided talking about it. Kamala Harris and Democrats have drawn a stark contrast to that by emphasizing gun control at their convention–at least as much as they have the last couple of election cycles.

Polling shows Americans still consider gun policy a key part of their vote. In the most recent CBS News/YouGov poll, 58 percent said it is a major factor in deciding who to support. Just 12 percent said it wasn’t a factor at all.

The polling indicates Americans are fairly split on who they favor on guns, too. That CBS poll found Democrats and liberals ranked gun policy as more important than Republicans and conservatives. Meanwhile, a Fox News poll from a few weeks earlier showed voters slightly favoring Trump over Harris on the issue.

But the most recent Fox News poll reveals another truth about voters and guns: they don’t consider it their top issue today. In a survey released this week, Fox found just three percent of voters identified guns as their top priority in the 2024 election.

It’s not surprising to see guns aren’t the top priority for most voters. That’s pretty typical. The issue tends to lag well behind economic issues and fall somewhere in the middle of the pack. Guns only tend to be a top-line issue in the immediate aftermath of a mass shooting or some other form of high-profile gun violence.

Those have also tended to be the times when Donald Trump has wavered in his pro-gun positions. In the aftermath of the El Paso shooting, he reportedly toyed with supporting an AR-15 ban behind closed doors. In the aftermath of the Parkland shooting, he publicly considered backing so-called Red Flag laws. In the aftermath of the Las Vegas shooting, he actually did implement the unconstitutional ban on bump stocks.

Another high-profile attack in the weeks before an election where he’s lagging behind in polling could push him to once again consider backing new gun restrictions.

Of course, this year’s second high-profile shooting offers a counterpoint to that idea. After all, Donald Trump himself was shot in the ear with an AR-15 by an attempted assassin just before the Republican National Convention. And that event hasn’t appreciably changed his position on guns.

So, maybe, despite going mostly quiet on the issue and complaining gun owners don’t show up to the polls in recent weeks, he won’t actually move away from gun voters under any circumstances.

But the Trump assassination attempt, for obvious reasons, did a lot more to generate sympathy for him than pressure to change his stance on guns. A high-profile shooting that doesn’t directly involve him would probably play out a lot more like the others mentioned above.

Then there’s Kamala Harris. Her campaign has followed the Biden playbook on guns thus far, even walking back her previous support for a mandatory buyback of AR-15s. A major shooting in the campaign’s final stretch could convince her to move right back to pushing for confiscation.

A steady shift in polling on its own could build the necessary pressure to shake up the state of the gun debate. Harris has moved away from many of her previous positions in an attempt to shore up her left flank since being thrust to the top of the ticket. Trump has tried to do the same, especially around abortion, in an attempt to arrest her rise. Either could continue to triangulate on guns under that pressure alone.

But a mass shooting would surely compound that pressure and likely reshape the race as we now know it.