The US is a constitutional republic, meaning, by design, the states have authority to govern themselves. The federal government has specific powers enumerated in the Constitution, and there are none whatsoever to open some kind of national referendum that would by definition be intended to test the bill of rights. The second amendment will be in force until the Constitution is changed, via the well-established procedure laid out therein. Not likely soon.
We did something like that in the 1920s with prohibition of alcohol, and it turned out to be a disaster. A majority clearly agreed then (and probably still do now) that alcohol caused all manner of social problems. But not very many thought through what would happen after alcohol was banned. It turned out to be unenforceable (just like gun banning would be), and spawned so many new evils that most people preferred going back to the old ones.
The polls do not suggest that most people want guns banned. In many states, sizable majorities would be against that, for reasons listed in several posts above. You can sometimes get a majority to agree to some kinds of restrictions, depending on how you devise the poll, but that’s about it.
The fact is that the trend in violence in the US over several decades is going down substantially, including gun violence. Many states have actually loosened the restrictions on concealed carry of handguns over the last ten years, and still the gun murders drop. Even the level of violence in schools is dropping, despite recent school shootings.
In my state, you have to take four days of classes and get a federal background check to apply for a concealed handgun carry permit. When I took the classes four years ago, permit holders had committed exactly two gun crimes in the entire history of the program. One man carried a handgun into a bar and proceeded to get drunk. The other case had to do with a man threatening another man with a gun under some circumstance I can’t remember. No shots were fired, or persons injured, in either case.
The classes are taught by former law enforcement officers. I was worried that having a permit might make for trouble if I ever got pulled over for a traffic violation or something. It turns out that police officers, at least in this state, relax when they encounter a known permit holder. That’s because they know that, due to the background check, the permit holder has to be a person with no criminal history, no reported psychological problems, etc., etc. The local movie theater used to have signs on the doors that forbade people from carrying in guns, alcohol, your own sodas and so forth. After that lunatic in Colorado shot up that theater a while back, they removed guns from the list of prohibited items.
