How Will Gun Control Policy Affect the Midterm Elections?

With the midterm elections upon us, Rutgers experts weigh in on how gun control will be a factor with voters.

Michael Anestis
Executive Director, New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center
Associate Professor, School of Public Health

Gun violence prevention is complicated to discuss during election season. Individuals across the political spectrum hold strong beliefs on opposite ends of a continuum ranging from increasing to eliminating firearm access. One side may say that any policy aimed at addressing how firearms are accessed or stored is a slippery slope toward overturning the Second Amendment and the other side may say that firearm owners do not care about the safety of themselves or others.

The New Jersey Gun Violence Research Center views the issue of gun violence not through a political lens, but through a lens guided by data. In this election season, we encourage both voters and political candidates to do the same. Addressing gun violence – whether in the form of homicide, suicide or unintentional shootings – requires that we carefully consider the evidence that various policies do – or do not – save lives.

We maintain that policy should be guided by the best available data. We believe that policies should be in place to ensure the timely and rigorous collection of relevant data at a state and national level, thereby facilitating the exact type of work needed to help us evaluate if and how various possible solutions may work. Furthermore, we maintain that voters should consider whether candidates’ positions on gun violence prevention are guided by data as they decide how to cast their votes. Science is our path to effective and apolitical solutions, but we must demand that approach from our elected leaders.

Lisa L. Miller
Associate Professor, School of Arts and Sciences
Affiliated Professor, Criminal Justice

Gun violence is an enduring problem in the United States. The past few years have witnessed a spike in gun homicides. Still, even during relatively low violent crime periods, the United States has much higher rates of life-threatening violence than other wealthy democracies. Violent crime has many origins, but the easy availability of firearms is a major reason many Americans are killed yearly. This burden falls disproportionately on low-income people and African Americans, but all Americans are at higher risk in a country awash in firearms.

Gun violence in the United States is a shocking failure of government. Whereas gun safety used to be a bipartisan issue, over the past 40 years, Republican lawmakers have opposed virtually all new gun safety regulations, prohibited effective gun-tracing strategies and rolled back some existing regulations. The argument that more guns will mean more safety is belied by both volumes of research as well as common sense.

A strong majority of Americans want common-sense gun legislation. If voters want to express their outrage at this government failure, they should support candidates who promise to keep up the fight against gun extremists.

Voters should consider whether candidates’ positions on gun violence prevention are guided by data as they decide how to cast their votes.

Michael Anestis

Ashley Koning
Assistant Research Professor, Eagleton Institute of Politics
Director, Rutgers Eagleton Center for Public Interest Polling

While gun violence may not be the top issue on voters’ minds this midterm cycle, it is certainly among a select few. In the wake of multiple mass shootings and the Supreme Court’s gun-related ruling last spring, polls show that voters cite gun policies – alongside reproductive rights – as a major issue after the economy and inflation. Large majorities, moreover, view the issue as a problem in the country and important to their vote, and want to see gun control reform signed into law; this is especially true among younger voters, like those belonging to Generation Z. The challenge, however, is whether gun control and gun violence can provide enough motivation for young voters – given their historically weaker turnout compared to other age groups – as well as independents and Democrats, to vote.

Partisan differences on gun policies could not be wider – though there are some promising areas of agreement, like mental health – and despite President Biden’s desire to make guns a leading issue this cycle, Republicans have been the ones to prominently feature guns in campaign ads and to address crime.

Gun policies are part of a larger set of social and public health issues in the spotlight this election competing with the hard-hitting effects of inflation, making from now until Election Day a battle of who is the strongest and loudest messenger on these topics and who can best mobilize not only their base but those still undecided and in the middle.

Jennifer Foster
Assistant Teaching Professor
Director of the Multi-Tiered Systems of Support (MTSS) Programs, Rutgers Graduate School of Applied and Professional Psychology

After the mass shooting in Uvalde, Texas, the atmosphere in schools was palpable. I recall a lockdown drill just a few days later. It was the first time in my career working in the public schools that I felt rattled. There was not an educator on the globe that wasn’t feeling the weight of the moment. The horror of that event was not new, but it felt like this time might be different. Nationally we were divided on most things, but surely the untimely, gruesome death of children would wake up the nation, if not the world.

Six months later, not much has changed. With the midterm elections upon us, there continues to be a clear divide on gun control and the number of mass shootings continues to rise. The argument is not a new one, but rather an endless debate. Gun control is seen either as a direct violation of the Second Amendment or a matter of public safety. This relentless back and forth continues to leave educators with no assurances. Given inflation has top billing, it’s not clear if the collective concern over gun violence among educators, parents and young voters will be strong enough to move the needle. However, one thing is clear: Until both sides meet in the middle, educators have no choice but to remain vigilant, fortify school safety protocols, increase prevention efforts and educate themselves in threat assessment and crisis management. As lifelong learners, educators will have to embrace a new set of skills to keep students safe.