Recent polls show that the majority of Americans support tighter gun restrictions, and believe that gun violence is a serious problem in the U.S.

In a recent address to the nation, President Joe Biden called for serious gun reform from Congress while addressing decades of tragic massacres as reason. “After Columbine, after Sandy Hook, after Charleston, after Orlando, after Las Vegas, after Parkland — nothing has been done,” Biden stated according to a NY Times article. 

In the address, Biden called out congressional Republicans for their stiff opposition and inaction to gun control, but even against stiff opposition to tighter gun laws, new studies show the majority of Americans want them.

A study by the Pew Research Center revealed that between 2017 and 2021, about 55% of Americans supported legislation restricting access to firearms, with an average of 80% of Democrats and 26% of Republicans supporting the idea respectively.

To be clear, the vast majority of these people don’t believe in a total ban of firearms in the United States, but rather to restrict people who may be a danger to others from obtaining firearms. Most of these people also believe in banning or restricting the sale of military-grade assault weapons, which have the capacity to help commit mass murder, and tend to be used in mass shootings like the ones in Parkland, Las Vegas, and even Uvalde, Texas last week. 

With this division on the topic, gun legislation has been left to individual states, which studies have proven a correlation that states with less firearm restrictions have more gun violence per-capita than those with more restrictions. For example, a study by the National Library of Medicine, which looked into the statistics of over 1.2 million American gun violence victims, found that people who live in states without many gun restrictions are 28% more likely to be injured or killed by a firearm than people who live in states with restrictive gun laws.

Connecticut is ranked one of the most restrictive states for gun laws and gun ownership in the nation. “In order to get a permit in Connecticut, you need to apply for a permit and take an NRA course, then apply to the Police department,” SWHS resource officer Peter Korchari stated in an interview, “then they run you through a background and criminal investigation. There are certain crimes that will bar you from getting a weapon. As long as you’re clean, then you’re usually approved. If a person with a license gets arrested, police confiscate guns and put them under review, and It’s possible that police may reassess someone if mental health issues come into play. But if you check all of the boxes, then you’re allowed to own a firearm.”

Gun violence and gun control are evidently some of the most divided and pressing issues facing the union today, and it’s important that people express their opinions regarding the issue, and that politicians listen and act to prevent gun violence in the most effective ways possible.