New polling shows trouble ahead for Republican politicians who continue blocking any attempt at rational restrictions on guns: Young conservatives of the kind the GOP will increasingly need in the future are far more open to required psychological exams for gun purchasers and other firearms limits than are their older conservative counterparts.
The reason is hardly mysterious: Gen Z — including its more right-leaning members — have all grown up in a country drowning in gun violence thanks to older conservatives’ stubborn resistance to even the mildest gun-safety proposals.
Mass school shootings have become such a routine part of American life that it’s easy to forget it hasn’t always been like this. The start of this dark era is generally put at 1999, the year of the Columbine High School massacre in Colorado, which left 15 dead.
