Pew has released a survey that reveals voters still overwhelmingly support specific measure to make it more difficult to get a gun:
Two years after the failure of Senate legislation to expand background checks on gun purchases, the public continues to overwhelmingly support making private gun sales and sales at gun shows subject to background checks. Currently, 85% of Americans – including large majorities of Democrats (88%) and Republicans (79%) – favor expanded background checks, little changed from May 2013 (81%).Partisan Views of Gun Proposals
The latest Pew Research Center poll of 2,002 adults, conducted July 14-20, finds that opinions about other gun policy proposals also are largely unchanged from two years ago, shortly after the December 2012 school shootings in Newtown, Conn.
Nearly eight-in-ten (79%) favor laws to prevent people with mental illness from purchasing guns, 70% back the creation of a federal database to track all gun sales, while a smaller majority (57%) supports a ban on assault-style weapons.
Almost identical shares of Republicans (81%) and Democrats (79%) support laws to prevent the mentally ill from buying guns. But other proposals are more divisive: 85% of Democrats favor creation of a database for the federal government to track gun sales, compared with 55% of Republicans. And while 70% of Democrats back an assault-weapons ban, only about half of Republicans (48%) favor this proposal.
But in the abstract, there’s still a significant split in whether gun rights should be curtailed:
Currently, 50% say it is more important to control gun ownership, while 47% say it is more important to protect the right of Americans to own guns.
Since December 2014, when support for gun rights reached a two-decade high, the share prioritizing gun rights has fallen five percentage points, while the percentage saying it is more important to control gun ownership has increased four points.
The balance of opinion on whether it is more important to control gun ownership or protect gun rights has been more closely divided in recent years than it was in the early 2000s or 1990s. From 1993-2008, majorities said it was more important to control gun ownership than to protect gun rights.
This article appears in Aug 13-19, 2015.
That damn constitution, getting in the way of the socialists, the progressives, liberals, from being fascists.
Fan of democracy when it goes your way?
Criminals support gun bans on all law abiding citizens. It makes their job much safer.
What, Again did you somehow miss the multiple mentions of Democrats and Republicans polled both being in favor of gun control to varying degrees? Where is anything about being liberal or socialist (ha!) mentioned? Or did you skip the reading altogether to hammer out yet another liberal/socialist/fascist comment? Or maybe everyone they asked is a socialist fascist to you because they share different views.
The poll shows the NRA is not invulnerable. Our gun culture makes us all less safe as tragedy after tragedy makes abundantly clear. It’s time for sensible restrictions on guns and all the paranoid gun nuts be damned.
stalecloud – ever read the US Constitution?
Oops – forgot – that doesn’t mean much to liberal/socialist/fascists, today’s democrat.
I see you avoided my questions and opted for more of the same. I don’t know why I expected a civil and relevant response this time.
It likely won’t make a difference, but yes I have read it. Why do you ask?
As I recall there are no proposed “restrictions” on, “law abiding” citizens. The only discussion is aimed toward those deemed,by STATUTE, convicted felons and those citizens with mental health issues.
JCB13 – no restrictions?
“70% back the creation of a federal database to track all gun sales,”
stalecloud – civil and relevant responses, decisions have been made by the Supreme Court.
If you are interested in a “civil and relevant” response for the subversion of the Constitution – no thank you.
Someone missed that, “well regulated militia” part of the Second Amendment text again.
They must be asking people who are being paid to give the “right” answers for these surveys.
It’s all about control. Control the law abiding citizens.