All That Anti-Gun News Coverage and Activist Marches Amounted to Little as Gun Concerns Drop Drastically

Gun control is like those window stickers you throw at glass. They’ll stick when you first throw them, but eventually, they’ll just start sliding or rolling down until they hit the floor.

And this is exactly what we saw happen with the anti-gun surge that hit the public after the Parkland shooting. All the hysterics, the media coverage, the student activism, the marches, and the vitriol shot gun control into the public’s awareness, putting it at greater heights than much of the past.

And now, a month after all of it culminated in the highly publicized March for Our Lives, guns have lost over 50 percent of the public appeal.

According to Gallup, guns went from being one of the most important issues in America at 13 percent, and dropped all the way to six percent. It would appear that all that time, money, and national vitriol was for nothing.

But that’s not surprising. As Gallup highlights, concerns about guns tend to be a temporary thing:

But it remains to be seen how long-lasting these changes in Americans’ attitudes will prove to be. Past shootings, such as the 2012 incident at Sandy Hook Elementary School, have changed at least some aspect of public opinion related to gun control, but these effects have tended to be temporary.

That said, Gallup notes that concern for guns still makes it a high priority issue, but no one is certain if it will stay there. Gun control talk has been elevated since 2001:

Given this context, the 7-percentage-point drop in the percentage of Americans mentioning guns as the country’s top problem this month might be a signal that concerns over guns in the U.S. are beginning to be fade. But this likely overstates the importance of the indicator’s decline. Mentions of gun control as the country’s top problem remain elevated by historical standards. Since 2001, gun control has been mentioned on average by 1% of Americans as the country’s top problem.

Regardless, it would appear that America treats the push for gun control as a trend that, like any news item, tends to decrease and disappear from the mind when the media and political hysterics run their course after an atrocity. Overall, America is a pro-gun nation, and even in the face of elevated concerns and talk, America will typically revert back to its pro-gun tendencies after a time.

Being a gun culture is America’s default stance.

It’s just a shame that we continue to have to go through this loop, especially when it comes to schools. School shootings are highly avoidable, and it starts by putting guns in the schools, only turned outward toward the dangers that would threaten the children inside.

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