Also, I imagine that people have to know who Luke is, and who the Jedi are. Rey knows who Luke Skywalker is, and she knows what a Jedi is, but people don’t know if he is still around, or if the Jedi are real, in the sense that they have magic powers and aren’t just some ancient religion.

Something like this lines up well with the motivations of the First Order that we see in the film. They are hunting down any trace of Luke Skywalker. It seems like the main reason Snoke has invested in the Starkiller project is to find Luke’s whereabouts and literally blow it up from across the galaxy. Using it to destroy the Republic seems like an afterthought, or a plan B. Not for Hux and the First Order, but for Snoke it seems that way. He clearly felt Luke was a more existential threat to his power than the Senate, which turned out to be true.

But yeah, it makes sense that the New Republic wouldn’t really respond dramatically to this this statement from the First Order. It definitely makes the New Republic’s lack of apparent concern with the First Order make sense too. Like, the First Order isn’t making a public statement against the New Republic, nor is the crawl suggesting that the Republic knows about the superweapon, which would also make them seem incompetent. For all they know, the First Order is just a overzealous Imperial remnant in a far flung corner of the galaxy. And why should they care about their anti-Jedi decree? Most people have never met a Jedi. But some Senators, like Leia, know Luke. And those Senators, and others like Lor San Tekka, take a personal interest in this threat against him and the restoration of the Jedi.