Views on guns remain locked, except for moments like this

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Another week, another mass shooting: This time at a Texas elementary school. And, as is often the case, another set of calls for more legislation around guns and gun ownership.

Gun control advocates want this time to be different and want Congress will pass legislation around the issue, but if something is going to happen, it’s probably going to need to happen fast. The usual divide on guns in this country is deep and, like many other issues, falls sharply along partisan lines.

On the surface, the polling data seem to show a country that is evenly divided on guns. CONTINUED

Dante Chinni, NBC News

Recent polls: Guns

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Republicans want to hand-count paper ballots. That’s less accurate.

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Supporters of former president Donald Trump’s false claim that he actually won the 2020 election are preparing for the next election by attacking the ballot scanners that tabulate the results, arguing that hand-counting paper ballots is more accurate. …

Republicans are arguing that humans are more likely than machines to get the count right. Evidence, however, suggests the opposite: Computers — which ballot scanners rely on — are very good at tedious, repetitive tasks. Humans are bad at them. And counting votes is tedious and repetitive.

While scanners haven’t yet been banned in any state, support for hand-counting paper ballots has surged among closely attuned Republicans and plummeted among similarly attuned Democrats, my research finds. With that opinion shift, expect state legislatures to act in 2023. CONTINUED

Charles Stewart III (MIT), Monkey Cage

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Georgia was an aberration: The GOP is still closer to Donald Trump than it is to Mike Pence

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Tuesday marked the worst performance this primary season for high-profile candidates endorsed by former President Donald Trump. … But if it was a bad day for Trump, it was a good one for his former vice president. …

The current President (Joe Biden) was once a vice president, so it might make sense to think that someone like Pence would be a strong contender to win a future Republican nomination for president. Polling and history, however, suggest Tuesday was more of an aberration than any sign of Pence’s future success. CONTINUED

Harry Enten, CNN

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Many back strict gun laws, but opposition tends to be louder

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Majorities of U.S. adults think mass shootings would occur less often if guns were harder to get, and that schools and other public places have become less safe than they were two decades ago, polling shows. Still, public attitudes on guns and gun policy are complicated, and the issue has seen little by way of federal legislative changes in more than a decade. …

While it’s not unusual for polling to show higher support for restrictions among the general public after a mass shooting, attitudes on gun regulation are overall rather stable over time, said John Roman, senior fellow at NORC at the University of Chicago. CONTINUED

Hannah Fingerhut, Associated Press

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Why Texans Can’t Get the Gun Laws They Really Want

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There’s a disconnect in Texas between public sentiment toward guns and the state’s increasingly lenient public policy toward gun ownership. As part of the Texas Politics Project at the University of Texas at Austin, we’ve been polling Texas voters for more than a decade on this topic, and it turns out that Texans, like most Americans, favor stricter gun control laws. But for the past decade, up to and including laws passed in 2019, the first legislative session after mass shootings in El Paso and Odessa, the state Legislature has continuously and steadily loosened the state’s gun laws. And in the wake of another horrific mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, it’s hard not to imagine more of the same. CONTINUED

Joshua Blank (U. of Texas at Austin), Politico Magazine

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Misinformation About COVID-19 Vaccines and Pregnancy is Widespread

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Misinformation and confusion about the COVID-19 vaccines and pregnancy remains widespread, with most people – including women who are pregnant or trying to get pregnant – either believing or being uncertain about at least one of three false claims they’ve heard, a new KFF COVID-19 Vaccine Monitor shows.

Among women who are pregnant or trying to get pregnant – the group for whom accurate information about the vaccines’ safety before, during and after pregnancy is most important – 72% either believe or are unsure about at least one of the myths. CONTINUED

Kaiser Family Foundation

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