Gun Control 101: What People Mean When They Talk Common Sense Gun Laws

Whether it’s in the heat of another contentious election year or the wake of a far-too-common mass shooting, Americans are likely to hear the term “common sense gun law” online, in the news, and from their elected officials.

As the term has become more popularized, it has subsequently been co-opted and, in many cases, bastardized, often by those who claim that gun reform measures will somehow undermine the Second Amendment of the U.S. Constitution, which established and protects Americans’ right to keep and bear firearms.

Yet, the vast majority of Americans support common sense gun laws, which do not aim to take weapons away from gun-owning Americans, but instead encapsulate a variety of popular measures that attempt to curtail the rising number of tragic firearm-related deaths.

Since 2020, guns have remained the leading cause of death for children living in the United States, surpassing car accidents and cancer. Homicide, most commonly linked to intimate partner violence and easy access to firearms, is the leading cause of death for pregnant women in the U.S., while the simple presence of a firearm in a home increases the risk of death by suicide three-fold.

Which is why common sense gun laws — like mandatory waiting periods, minimum age requirements, and criminal background checks — are so popular among voters. According to one 2023 Fox News poll, 87% of voters say they support requiring criminal background checks for all potential gun buyers.

The same poll found that 77% support 30-day mandatory waiting periods for gun purchases, 80% support required mental health checks for gun purchasers, and 61% support banning assault rifles and semi-automatic weapons.

Another 2022 NPR/IPsos survey found that the majority of voters support raising the minimum age to purchase a firearm to 21. Another 2020 survey found that 85% of nationwide voters — including 94% of Democrats, 77% of Republicans and 78% of gun owners — support so-called “red flag” laws that allow family members or law enforcement officers to remove guns from someone who potentially poses a threat.

Many of these popular gun control measures are the result of deep, painful personal tragedies — like Ethan’s Law, a bill that would establish a framework to better regulate the storage of firearms at both the state and federal level.

The law, also known as Senate Bill 173, is named after forever 15-year-old Ethan Song, who was unintentionally shot in the head and killed with an unsecured gun — kept in a shoebox by the gun owner — while he was at his best friend’s house in Guilford, Connecticut.

“Our goal in passing Ethan’s Law is to create a cultural shift where it becomes second nature for gun owners to secure their weapons if they are not in their immediate control,” Kristin Song, Ethan’s mom, said in a January 2023 press release, announcing the bill. “This law will not stop all shootings, but it will stop many, and to those children and parents, that is priceless.”

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), approximately half of all unintentional firearm deaths among children and teens occurred in their homes — most commonly because a child or children were “playing with or showing the firearm to another person.”

Which is why, in part, other measures like Ethan’s Law are being proposed at the state level. After Bruce and Claire Petillo’s 15-year-old son, Christian, was shot and killed during a sleepover at a friend’s house by an unsecured weapon, the grieving parents have attempted to pass Christian’s Law in Arizona which, like Ethan’s, would require gun owners to properly secure their weapons.

“Mass shootings are awful and they get headlines,” Bruce said in a 2023 interview with TODAY.com. “But these things are happening every single day and they just go by as a regular news story — they don’t get the same level of attention, but on a scale they’re more impactful to the overall community because there’s more of them that occur.”

While common sense gun laws are a relatively recent political talking point, gun laws are not new to the country — as the Violence Policy Center notes, there are said to be more than 20,000 gun laws currently on the books in the U.S. at the local, state, and federal levels. And yet, an estimated three in 10 adults say they own a gun, while four in 10 say they live in a household with a gun — a reminder that despite what those employed or funded by the gun lobby say, gun reform measures do not take away guns from law-abiding Americans.

Many of those laws, however, do not regulate the sale or possessions of firearms. Instead, they focus on zoning regulations, transport and discharge of firearms, etc. Which is why those in favor of common sense gun laws say more needs to be done to better protect the American public from unfettered access to potentially dangerous weapons that have, in part, led to the United States being an outlier when it comes to gun violence.

“The gun owner could have saved Ethan in the time it takes to draw one breath, simply by locking up his guns,” Kristin Song said during a 2021 Senate hearing. “If he had, my beautiful boy, with his infectious smile, would be walking across the stage to accept his high school diploma next month. Instead, that night, while his friends are throwing their caps into the air, I will be sitting at Ethan’s grave — and the only one speaking his name will be me.”