The show points out that President Bush's recent meeting in Washington with the Philippine president, Gloria Macapagal Arroyo, was to signal the issue's priority.
The divergent statements of Mr. Gore and Mr. Bush continued an often tense back-and-forth over gun control that has lasted several days and signaled the potential potency of the issue in the 2000 elections.
In agreeing to hear the constitutional challenge in Golan v. Holder, the U.S. Supreme Court has signaled the importance of the constitutional issues raised.
"It signals taking the issue seriously, that harms are serious enough to be criminalized," said Danielle Citron, a law professor at the University of Maryland.
In recent years it had become popular to appoint a chief risk officer to signal that the issue was receiving attention.
Even in his speech at the Newtown vigil on Sunday, in which he signalled that the issue would be a priority, he did not mention guns specifically, and on Monday Carney spoke only in broad, vague terms about gun control.
Signalling that the issue would not go away, Davies said the inquiry panel would continue to meet every six months to consider progress and that statutory quotas would be brought in if voluntary targets failed to produce results.
The poll also signals that the issue will figure in the 2016 presidential campaign, with about twice as many Americans saying Democrats would more reliably ensure access to child care than Republicans.
Trump blasted the verdict in Kate Steinle's death as a "miscarriage of justice," signaling that the issue of sanctuary cities is likely to become fodder in state races.
When the United States vetoed the UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements in the very thick of February's revolutionary protests, to flag one signal, the issue was largely ignored by Arab protesters.
