After his arrest, Robert Bowers, the man charged with killing 11 people Saturday at Tree of Life synagogue, told authorities: “I just want to kill Jews.” Authorities said Bowers, who is believed to have acted alone, was armed with an assault rifle and three handguns.

Among President Trump’s first responses to the massacre in Pittsburgh was to suggest that it could have been prevented with a heavier, armed security presence.

“If there was an armed guard inside the temple, they would have been able to stop him,” he told reporters Saturday.

The president also was asked whether gun laws should be revisited in light of the shooting, but the president said the shooting “has little to do with it.”

Gun laws are among the most politically polarizing issues, but heading into the midterm elections there had not been much talk about them. A week before the shooting, the Pew Research Center published data showing that there are some specific policy proposals that both Republicans and Democrats support broadly.

Most Americans say gun laws should be more strict — and the number who say so has increased over the past year. Nearly six in 10 — 57 percent — of Americans think gun laws should be stricter. That number was 52 percent last year.

After mass shootings, it is common to hear questions and concerns about the suspect’s mental health. Perhaps in light of that, overwhelming majorities (89 percent) of Republicans, Democrats and independents who lean toward one of the parties say people who are mentally ill should be barred from buying guns.

And support for making guns harder to buy privately remains high. Large majorities of Democrats (91 percent) and Republicans (79 percent) favor making background checks a requirement for private gun sales and sales at gun shows.

Bowers, who had 21 guns registered under his name, was not on any federal watch list. Most Americans would have supported him not being able to buy guns had he been. People in both parties — 86 percent of Democrats and 83 percent of Republicans — support barring people from purchasing guns who are on federal watch lists. There are thousands of names on several lists, and how they are policed varies in part because of how the various lists are assembled and for what reasons, according to the American Civil Liberties Union.

Most Americans (52 percent) say it is more important to control gun ownership than to protect Americans' rights to own guns, though that number is much higher among Republicans, which explains why Trump and so many others have campaigned on protecting them.

Given these stats, if you weren’t familiar with the political history of these issue, it would seem possible that the next Congress could have some reason to make changes to existing gun regulations.