Regional differences + electoral math:
“There’s just very regional differences in this country when it comes to guns, whether they make you a safer person or a more dangerous person, or a safer community or more dangerous community,” [Jim Kessler, former legislative director for Chuck Schumer] told me. “In January of this year there were 44 murders in the city of Chicago. In North Dakota, South Dakota, Montana, Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, there were 40 gun homicides combined. So there’s a very, very different conception of how safe it is where we are and how dangerous it is where we are.”
Universal background checks may enjoy overwhelming support across the country, but gun owners and sympathizers in rural states with little gun crime are less animated by the idea—which means politicians can’t count on them to offset the backlash from high-intensity pro-gun voters.
These six rural states have 12 senators between them. Illinois has two.
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