Where do Vance and Walz stand on gun control? Positions emerge during the debate.

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Ohio Sen. JD Vance and Minnesota Gov. Tim Walz faced off Tuesday in the vice presidential debate, including a series of questions about gun violence in U.S. schools.

Both candidates acknowledged the impact of gun violence as parents of young children.

Vance suggested empowering law enforcement to combat illegal gun ownership and increasing school safety as policy solutions.

“We need to improve door locks. We need to make the doors stronger,” Vance said. “And of course we need to increase the number of school resource officers, because the idea that we can magically wave a wand and take guns out of the hands of bad guys just doesn’t fit the experience recent.”

In response, Walz pointed to Minnesota’s enactment of strengthened red flag laws and background checks as proactive steps toward reducing gun violence.

Walz also pointed to successful approaches seen in other countries, such as Finland, where gun ownership coexists with significantly lower rates of gun violence.

“There have been no mass shootings, even though gun ownership is high in the country,” Walz said. “There are reasonable things we can do to make a difference. This does not infringe on your Second Amendment rights.

Fact check: What Tim Walz and JD Vance Got Right (and Wrong) in the Vice Presidential Debate

How often do mass shootings occur in the United States compared to other Western countries?

The United States represents 33% of the population if we add 36 other Western countries. However, it is responsible for 76% of public mass shootings and 70% of deaths from mass shootings between 2000 and 2022, according to a February report from the Rockefeller Institute of Government.

According to the report, the United States has experienced 109 mass shootings, compared to 3 in Finland, which has not had a mass shooting since 2010.

Massacre database: Revealing the trends, details and angst of every American event since 2006

How prevalent are unregistered firearms?

Traditional firearms are manufactured by licensed companies and sold through licensed dealers, with all guns legal in the United States required to have a serial number.

The lack of serial numbers or background checks on ghost guns or untraceable guns makes it impossible to determine the exact number of unregistered firearms in circulation.

More: Hawaii Rep. Jill Tokuda takes aim at ‘zombie gun’ loophole creating untraceable firearms

Jeremy Yurow is a Hawaii-based politics reporter for the USA TODAY Network. You can reach him at [email protected] or on X, formerly Twitter @JeremyYurow