These Are The States That Would Rather Learn About Gun Shops Than Gun Control

America's interest in guns shifts depending on current events. Google search data reveals that after a mass shooting, interest in "gun control" usually spikes. Shortly thereafter, it fades. The pattern has repeated month after month, year after year.

On Tuesday, as President Barack Obama advocated for long overdue action on gun control, we decided to revisit Google's 2015 data to learn a little bit more about how Internet users approach the issue.

The search engine has long measured public attitudes by comparing searches for "gun control" versus "gun shop." It obviously isn't a perfect method for one major reason: It's impossible to determine why anyone's searching for a given term. A gun owner could be brushing up on "gun control" to further his or her pro-gun arguments, while gun control advocates might want to learn about "gun shops" in their area. Still, it's a useful way to get a broad view of where the American public stands -- and when opinions seem to shift.

In 2015 overall, states were overwhelmingly more interested in learning about "gun shops" than "gun control."

The only states that averaged more searches for "gun control" throughout the year were California, Utah, Alaska, Washington, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Nebraska, Iowa, New Jersey, Connecticut and Rhode Island.

"Gun shop" has been a more popular term in the United States overall for the past few years.

Meanwhile, guns kill an average of 36 people every day in the U.S. According to the Gun Violence Archive, 127 people have already been killed in gun incidents in 2016.