Four in 10 Americans think schools in their communities are not safe from gun violence, according to the latest PBS NewsHour/NPR/Marist poll. As the United States marks one year since the deadly shooting at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas, when 19 children and two teachers were killed, support for controlling gun violence has hit its highest level in a decade of Marist data.
Most U.S. adults feel their local schools are safe from gun violence. But from Newport News to Denver to Nashville, the number of communities affected by shootings grows, as well as a sense of unease: Concern about gun violence in schools has risen 10-percentage points since February 2019, a year after the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. People in the South, where gun laws tend to be less restrictive, were more likely in this poll to feel their local schools were vulnerable to gun violence than those in the Northeast and Midwest.
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