The Future Is Surprisingly Bright for Gun Control Advocates
Activists are employing more political savvy to take on the NRA. They’re also getting younger.
The shooting in Virginia Beach last week, which left 12 people dead and four others injured, was the deadliest of 2019. It was also, according to the Gun Violence Archive, the 37th mass shooting event this year to result in two or more fatalities. When it comes to gun violence, America remains an ugly outlier among developed countries: Gun homicide rates in the U.S. are 25 times higher than any other high-income nation, and while the U.S. has less than 5% of the world’s population, its citizens have as much as 50% of the civilian-owned firearms on the planet. And mass shootings are just one part of the problem: According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, nearly 40,000 Americans died by gun violence in 2017, the highest number recorded, with the majority of those — nearly 24,000 — being deaths by suicide.
But gun control advocates have reason for at least a sliver of optimism: Public sentiment is finally changing around the issue. According to Pew Research Center, for the first time in 10 years, more Americans support controlling gun ownership (52% ) than support protecting gun rights (44%). Moreover, gun control advocacy groups were more…
