The US electoral system is uniquely designed to stop change. Gun control is a difficult issue, because whilst you can create rules at state and local level it's

The US electoral system is uniquely designed to stop change. Gun control is a difficult issue, because whilst you can create rules at state and local level it's incredibly difficult for those laws to be effective because "Drive to somewhere that doesn't have those rules" is often the trivial work-around. So instead you need national action. Which means you need to win the Presidency, Congress, 60 seats in the Senate and control of the Supreme Court (since whatever law you create has to withstand a constitutional challenge). Then remember that the House of representatives uses gerrymandered districts, and the Senate is apportioned by state, not population, and the Senate only has 1/3rd of the seats up for election every 2 years. The last time any party had this majority was in 1977. In order to get to that level in the Senate you would need to elect democrats in states like Iowa - which in 2016 voted for the Republican with 60% of the vote vs the Democratic challenger who garnered 35% of the vote. So let's assume that the entire population of the US suddenly decides to vote for gun control and an unprecedented landslide happens (despite the pro gun control party currently presiding over a massive economic catastrophe). And let's assume that that party doesn't have any candidates who actually oppose gun control. They'll pass a gun control law, and the US Supreme Court will strike it down as unconstitutional. And they serve lifetime terms. And they have a 6:3 majority. So you better really hope that 2 of the republican justices die whilst you have a majority in the Senate and you have the presidency. Which seems unlikely because the second oldest republican justice is 72 and last justice to die died at the age of 87. So it could easily be 15 years before you even have the chance to change the composition of the Supreme court. Oh and bipartisan legislation has basically entirely stopped happening on normal issues. So to actually legislate to prevent this you would need a pro gun control party to win an election by an unheard of landslide. So yeah, it's not about whether people want gun control. It's whether an overwhelming number of people are willing to be single issue voters on the topic.