Since 2016, thousands of Americans have been wounded in mass shootings, and tens of thousands by gun violence. Beyond the colossal medical bills and the weight of trauma and grief, mass shooting survivors and family members contend with scores of other changes that upend their lives.

The poll by the University of Chicago Harris School of Public Policy and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows 71% of Americans say gun laws should be stricter, including about half of Republicans, the vast majority of Democrats and a majority of those in gun-owning households.

The profits have come as the weapons have been used in mass shootings that have horrified the nation, including one that left 10 people dead at a grocery store in Buffalo and another where 19 children were shot to death in Uvalde, Texas.

The nearly 80-page report was the first to criticize both state and federal law enforcement, and not just local authorities in the South Texas town for the bewildering inaction by heavily armed officers as a gunman fired inside two fourth-grade classrooms at Robb Elementary School, killing 19 students and two teachers.

Law enforcement authorities had enough officers on the scene of the Uvalde school massacre to have stopped the gunman three minutes after he entered the building, and they never checked a classroom door to see if it was locked, the Texas public safety chief testified.

Many survivors of gun-related violence and supporters of the Wear Orange Campaign believe part of the solution to saving lives is stricter gun laws. Groups like Moms Demand Action say the recent shootings make their movement more urgent. 

Only six states require someone to be at least 21 years old to buy rifles and shotguns. Advocates argue that such a limit might have prevented the elementary school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that left 19 children and two teachers dead and the racially motivated supermarket attack in Buffalo, New York, that killed 10.

His comments came a day after he traveled to the shattered Texas community of Uvalde, mourning privately for three-plus hours with anguished families grieving for the 19 children and two teachers who died in the shooting. Faced with chants of “do something” as he departed a church service, Biden pledged: “We will.”

Nineteen children and two teachers were ultimately shot dead in the roughly 80 minutes the gunman spent inside the school in Uvalde, Texas. This account of the deadliest school shooting since Sandy Hook is based on law enforcement’s timeline, records and numerous interviews with Uvalde residents in the hours and days after the massacre.

As details emerge about the shooting deaths of 19 children and two teachers in Uvalde, Texas, America’s parents find themselves in a sadly familiar position — having to explain the events to their own children and helping them confront fears about violence.

By Friday, authorities acknowledged that students and teachers repeatedly begged 911 operators for help while the police chief told more than a dozen officers to wait in a hallway at Robb Elementary School. Officials said he believed that the suspect was barricaded inside adjoining classrooms and that there was no longer an active attack.

Violence and other trauma have become common enough for schoolchildren that Chicago Public Schools developed a 15-page guide called “The Day After,” to help teachers and staff coach students through processing painful events.

So far this year there have been 24 shootings in K-12 schools across the country. A sobering statistic that Illinois' Senator Durbin gave in his opening remarks of a Senate Judiciary Committee today. Senators questioned President Biden's nominee for the director of the nation's top gun enforcement agency — a position that has been vacant for seven years.

Biden spoke Tuesday night from the White House barely an hour after returning from a five-day trip to Asia that was bracketed by mass shootings in the U.S. He pleaded for action to address gun violence after years of failure — and bitterly blamed firearm manufacturers and their supporters for blocking legislation in Washington.

An 18-year-old gunman opened fire Tuesday at a Texas elementary school, killing at least 14 children and a teacher and wounding others, Gov. Greg Abbott said, and the gunman was dead.