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If you didn't know any better, you might think that even if new gun control proposals from President Obama become stalled in Washington's gridlock, the states will rush in to fill the void.

After all, under its Democratic Gov. Andrew Cuomo, New York has responded to December's Newtown tragedy by moving quickly on legislation to ban assault weapons and to make it harder for seriously mentally ill individuals to legally obtain firearms.

Meanwhile, Maryland Gov. Martin O'Malley, a fellow Democrat, has announced that he is championing new restrictions to require anyone seeking a gun permit to take a mandatory training course and submit fingerprints to state authorities.

And yet one more Democrat, Gov. John Hickenlooper in Colorado, a state in a traditionally pro-gun region of the country, is calling for universal background checks for would-be gun purchasers. He would require anyone buying a firearm, even at a gun show or in a private sale, to pass a criminal background check.

There's an old newsroom adage that three is a trend. And the activity in these three states could certainly lead an observer to assume that there's a widespread movement in the states to act on gun control with a swiftness not found at the federal level.

But sometimes three doesn't really signal a larger trend. This is one of those times.

While the three aforementioned states and several others are considering new restrictions on guns following the pre-Christmas massacre of grade-schoolers and educators in Connecticut, there isn't much evidence of things on the state level shifting toward greater gun control.

The states considering further restrictions are all blue states.

In fact, in several red states, the shift is in the exact opposite direction. In Arizona, Tennessee, Texas and Wyoming, for instance, legislation has been introduced recently that would loosen gun restrictions or underscore gun owner rights.

While the gun control issue isn't a totally partisan one, the push for new limits is more likely to occur in states with Democratic governors and legislatures than in states in which the GOP controls the governor's mansion and legislature.

Keeping in mind that 30 states have Republican governors and 26 state legislatures are GOP-controlled, compared with the 19 that are controlled by Democrats (four are split; Nebraska's is nonpartisan), it's obvious that the National Rifle Association and other gun rights advocates have a substantial firewall in the states.

The firewall means that legislation in the states is likely to be only so effective, since — as has been seen in history — guns can easily make their way into states with strict restrictions from states with looser laws.

In 1993, Virginia instituted a gun sale restriction that limited buyers to one handgun a month, after research found that a disturbing number of guns sold in the state were being used in crimes elsewhere on the East Coast.

That restriction was repealed last year by the Republican-led Legislature and signed by GOP Gov. Robert McDonnell on the grounds that it interfered with the Second Amendment rights of citizens. The repeal, however, has once again raised fears that a flood of Virginia guns will find their way into the hands of criminals.

Something else to keep in mind is that not every Democratic governor is a sure champion for tough new gun control laws.

Take Gov. Jerry Brown of California who, in the past has described himself as a gun owner and hunter. Though Brown has signed gun control legislation during his governorship — for instance, a ban on openly carrying unloaded handguns in public — he has been relatively muted on the issue post-Newtown. He's made no promises on whether he would sign future gun-control bills.

So while it should be fairly obvious that new restrictions on guns face significant obstacles in the nation's capital, it's just as true that such efforts face significant headwinds in most states, as well.

But what does it look like from space?

NASA's Earth Observatory released a pair of satellite images today that show Beijing and the surrounding areas on Monday and 11 days earlier, on Jan. 3.

NASA explains what seen on Monday's image:

"The brightest areas tend to be clouds or fog, which have a tinge of gray or yellow from the air pollution. Other cloud-free areas have a pall of gray and brown smog that mostly blots out the cities below. In areas where the ground is visible, some of the landscape is covered with lingering snow from storms in recent weeks."

One month after the Newtown, Conn., school shootings, gun control is on the national agenda. The White House will outline its proposals this week, and national surveys find a majority of Americans support options such as requiring background checks for both private and gun-show sales.

As NPR's Richard Gonzales found when he visited a large traveling gun show this past weekend, it seemed that the momentum behind new gun control proposals had brought a spike in business for gun sellers.

The San Francisco Gun Show was held at the Cow Palace, where Richard reported seeing "a line of a couple thousand people winding through the parking lot. And the line of cars to get into the parking lot is six blocks long."

He spoke to an attendee about the show's draw this year.

"Everybody is freaked out right now. So who knows?" hunter Robert Gonzales tells Richard with a sigh. Asked to explain, Gonzales answers, "They're freaked out that they're not going to be able to buy weapons I guess, you know. Cuz I been coming to this Cow Palace for years and I've never seen it this bad."

President Obama said Monday that he will unveil the White House's plan later this week; he was to meet with Vice President Biden today, to discuss the options Biden's gun control task force is recommending to the president.

"Some of them will require legislation," Obama said. "Some of them I can accomplish through executive action."

According to two national surveys released today, a majority of Americans support creating a federal database to track gun sales, requiring background checks for gun-show sales, and increasing the number of armed guards at schools.

Background supports drew the most support in the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press survey, with 85 percent in favor. The survey also found that 64 percent supported putting more armed guards or police in schools.

Another study, from The Washington Post and ABC, found similar result, with 52 percent of those responding said the Newtown shootings made them more likely to to support gun control. And both surveys found that more than 50 percent of Americans support banning assault style weapons.

On today's All Things Considered, Pew Director Michael Dimock tells Audie Cornish that despite the broad support, some of the options spur deep partisan divides. For instance, "among Republicans, you get fewer than half who would favor a federal government database on guns," he says. By contrast, 84 percent of Democrats are in favor.

And 44 percent of Republicans support a ban on assault weapons, while 69 percent of Democrats say they would support such a ban. Similar divides exist on the issues of banning semi-automatic weapons and ending the sale of ammunition online.

In Metairie, La., where Mike Mayer owns the Jefferson Gun Outlet, Mayer tells Richard that many of his customers are looking for the semi-automatic AR-15 rifle, like the one used in the Newtown shootings.

"For a standard AR, something that we would sell normally for $899 is selling right now for $1850," Mayer tells Richard.

"What it really showed was because different cultures — the military, civilian, whatnot — all have their own lexicon, you can be having a conversation where you think you're communicating effectively ... but you're not," he says.

He says it's the responsibility of the military to explain to civilian leaders what its strategic goals are and what resources are needed to achieve them.

The Article That Ended His Career

McChrystal resigned after comments that he and his staff made about members of the Obama administration in what he believed to be an off-the-record setting to a Rolling Stone reporter. The magazine published the comments in an article titled "The Runaway General" in the summer of 2010.

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McChrystal Piece Stirs Debate On Covering Military July 2, 2010