Wednesday’s events reignited a debate about decorum.

After an unexpected flurry of bullets shattered the peaceful morning, wounding a member of Congress, the calls quickly came for a more civil political discourse.

In Arizona, following the shooting of then-Rep. Gabrielle Giffords outside a supermarket in 2011, President Barack Obama, during a memorial service days later called for a “more civil and honest public discourse.”

In Washington, D.C., on Wednesday, following the shooting of a lawmaker at a baseball practice, House Speaker Paul Ryan said during a floor speech that “for all the noise and all the fury, we are one family.”

The days ahead will tell if the somber pleas to create a more civil tone in politics will lead to any true change, or fade as it did after the 2011 Tucson shooting.

There were long discussions and some symbolic gestures after the attempted assassination of Giffords and the killings of six people in the crowd at the Safeway to meet her.

“For a time, we had it,” Sen. Jeff Flake said during a conference call with reporters on Wednesday. “It was a nice respite. I hope it lasts longer this time.”

Flake was on a baseball field in Alexandria, Virginia, Wednesday morning, practicing for the annual Congressional Baseball Game, a charity contest between Democrats and Republicans scheduled for Nationals Park today. The first occurred in 1909.

When a gunman opened fire, Flake took cover in the dugout. After the shooting stopped, he ran onto the field and aided Rep. Steve Scalise, R-Louisiana, applying pressure to his gunshot wound.

Flake said Wednesday brought back memories of the 2011 shooting, when he waited in a hospital hoping for good news about Giffords, a close friend.

“I was doing the same thing for the most part today,” he said.

Congress tried to set an example at the 2011 State of the Union address, which took place the same month as the shooting at the grocery store outside Tucson. Democrats and Republicans sat together in the House chamber, rather than sitting in divided camps.

Flake, then a Republican representative, sat next to Democratic Rep. Raul Grijalva, a fellow Arizonan.

In his speech, Obama noted the gesture.

“Now, by itself, this simple recognition won’t usher in a new era of cooperation,” he said. “What comes of this moment is up to us. What comes of this moment will be determined not by whether we can sit together tonight, but whether we can work together tomorrow.” The moment didn’t last. Flake said when Giffords returned to Congress in 2012 for the State of the Union address, he stood alongside her. He said he was criticized for doing so.

“I was ridiculed for standing up with her,” he said. “There’s no reason for that. I hope we can change.”

Rep. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., said when she was elected and attended her first State of the Union in 2013, she tried to keep the bipartisan tradition alive.

“For a couple of years, there were still some of us that were making a concerted effort to sit with a member of another party at the State of the Union,” Sinema said Wednesday during a phone interview.

She also said the talk in Washington after the shooting at the ball field was of fostering a renewed sense of civility.

“Many of my colleagues are saying this is a really important time for us as members to use language that shows we are unified as Americans,” Sinema said. “I don’t know how effective it is. But we should try to set an example for others.”

A few months after the shootings outside Tucson, the Institute for Civil Discourse was created at the University of Arizona. Its founder, Fred DuVal, said it aimed to smooth out the coarseness of political debate.