80% of Americans don't support gun control. American Political parties are coalitions among themselves. Even if Ds won by 20 points they won't have the support to do things like implement nationalized healthcare or overturning the 2nd Amendment.
"80% of Americans don't support gun control" is pretty laughably wrong, considering the numbers actually paint a much different picture. According to Pew and APMRL, 58% of Americans want stricter gun laws, and nearly everyone—86%—supports universal background checks. 86%. Not exactly a fringe opinion, is it?
Also, the idea that no one’s on board with any gun control measures conveniently ignores the fact that a majority of Republicans even support some restrictions like keeping guns out of the hands of people with mental illnesses. It’s almost like you made this number up.
Sure, not every gun control proposal gets broad support—take things like an assault weapons ban, which has more partisan splits—but even there, almost three-quarters of Americans are on board with requiring licensing and testing, just like with cars. So, trying to paint gun control as some sort of massively unpopular idea just falls flat.
According to Pew and APMRL, 58% of Americans want stricter gun laws, and nearly everyone—86%—supports universal background checks. 86%. Not exactly a fringe opinion, is it?
They hyper majority of gun sales have background checks involved in them. Universal background checks would either ban the private sale of guns (which SCOTUS would likely overturn) or open up the background check system to private citizens (which will almost certainly be abused from a computer security perspective & will lead to people realizing just how poor the system is).
The point isn't that 80% don't support gun control, it's that each thing on the wishlist isn't widely popular. And even if the actions would lead to a landslide, Americans wouldn't be happy about it.
You would have to define "gun control". As I'm sure that more than 20% of Americans would be in favor of incarcerated prisoners not being allowed to carry guns, which is a form of "gun control".
Especially when you look at the US's largest metropolitan areas like New York and Chicago that's really the only knob that hasn't been turned. It's defacto illegal to own a gun in those areas for the common man or woman.