Normally in the aftermath of a mass shooting you’ll see a little spike in public sentiment for more gun control laws. Following the attack at Sandy Hook the number of people in favor of a so-called “assault weapons” ban spiked for the first time in decades before quietly slinking back to normal levels. But things have changed. Following events like the Colorado Springs shooting and the San Bernardino terrorist attack, more Americans see the Second Amendment as the best way to protect themselves. A record 53% of Americans now oppose an “assault weapons” ban according to ABC, and more people believe that concealed carry is a better idea than increased gun control to keep people safe . . .
A majority of Americans oppose banning assault weapons for the first time in more than 20 years of ABC News/Washington Post polls, with the public expressing vast doubt that the authorities can prevent “lone wolf” terrorist attacks and a substantial sense that armed citizens can help.
Just 45 percent in this national survey favor an assault weapons ban, down 11 percentage points from an ABC/Post poll in 2013 and down from a peak of 80 percent in 1994. Fifty-three percent oppose such a ban, the most on record.
Democrats have stated that they want gun control to be a “litmus test” for the 2016 race for president, and while that might be a good strategy for winning the votes of their dyed-in-the-wool anti-gun base, it’s apparently at odds with the mood of the majority of Americans. If they want to win the White House, this latest poll indicates that they might want to reconsider that position.
What’s really interesting isn’t the backlash against an “assault weapons” ban, but instead the viewpoint of the majority of Americans on the best way to keep us safe.
It’s evident that most Americans have lost faith in the ability of a big government approach to keeping terrorists from attacking us here at home. Instead, they are increasingly turning to concealed carry and self-reliance as the best way to defend against terrorism.
That’s the most interesting graph I’ve seen in a long time. Like I said, in the past you’d have seen gun control gaining support when people are scared and the body count on TV rises. But instead of turning to the government to save them, people are realizing that they’re their own first responders. That when the worst happens, self-reliance and armed self-defense are their best options. It’s the reason why the Second Amendment exists.
53% is still within the margin of error regarding a 50-50 split of the populace; it is not a “win”. 75-80% gun rights support over about a decade might be called a “win”. A simple majority is enough to get horrific legislation passed, but not enough to secure a right.
I don’t trust polls. Unless I see where the polls were taken, what the sample size is, and how the questions were asked then I just don’t trust them. Is it 53% of anti territory that is changing their minds? If so then you may have 70 to 80% pro gun population. Or was it “gun totin, bible thumpin south” that have been polled. If so you may have less than 50% pro gun population.
What we have seen is record number of gun sales and permit to carry in history. That HAS to say something! I would trust those numbers a lot further than any poll.
It’s *not* just the south. A lot of people really have changed their minds on AWB and gun control in the last 5 years. Really. I’m getting tired of hearing that it doesn’t / can’t / hasn’t happened. It’s almost like some people would rather have exclusivity than majority.
Oh without a doubt. I was just throwing an Obama quote example in there. Should have said,
Or was it “gun totin, bible thumpin south”, as Obama puts it, that have been polled. If so you may have less than 50% pro gun population.
“It’s not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion…”
maybe it says that people who already own guns bought/buy more, just in case. doesn’t seem to be a way to determine how many buyers are first-time, or multi-tasking.
More people are figuring out that “assault rifles” are really just semi-autos and they are rarely used in the commission of crime.
Internet, death of dead tree media.. less people getting their info from “you’ll be told what to think ” sources and instead going out and doing their own research and finding out the truth for themselves.
You would think that getting hit with a clue bat like this would tell the media/Democrats that “we want to ban guns” is a really stupid political idea, but it is hard to change an irrational belief system. Hoplophobia can be a very tenacious mental illness.
The problem is they see themselves as more “enlightened” and thus, more superior. So our inferior beliefs mean little to them, cuz they are more enlightened afterall.
This would work for them if the general gun rights population could believe that people who in the past were vehemently against an individual’s rights could or would change their viewpoint.
Some people weren’t that vehement, they were mainly indifferent and uninformed. So they responded to polls with what they thought was an aligned position.
Things like Sandy Hook had the effect of converting some antis to pro because it caused them to not be so indifferent anymore — the calls for an AWB came again, and while some simply parroted or, others said ” OK what’s the deal with ‘assault weapons’ anyways.”
Since when you scratch the surface the “assault weapons” definition is an emperor-has-no-clothes sort of thing, some people when motivated to look into it, even though they were “casually anti” before, saw the lies for what they were.
In my case the AWB being bullshi* is what lead me to question the rest of the anti gun platform.
A lot of the country really is independent with slight leanings. The passionate on either side are who rally and scream, but a lot of people who may answer a poll “oh yeah ban assault weapons” may just do so because taking a strong position on that, and investigating it, hasn’t become part of their life yet.
“If they want to win the White House, this latest poll indicates that they might want to reconsider that position.”
No, no, no, no and no. Democrat politicians running on a harsh gun control platform are smart and brave and double plus good. We should all encourage these fools to double down on their anti-civil rights bigotry. It will make the results of the 2016 elections so much better.
Polls are great and all, but part of the purpose/benefit of living under a constitutional republic is that our rights are not subject to the whims of the majority.
Exactly! Tyranny of the majority is a very real thing in democracies. Thank God we are a republic and have the bill of rights.
Afraid you are grasping at a myth. All the rights identified in the constitution are subject to the whim of 2/3s of the states. All our rights can be repealed legally through constitutional amendments. If our “natural and civil rights” were inviolate, the founders would have so declared in the constitution, requiring the central government, and or states, to take punitive action against anyone who attempted to remove any of the identified rights legally or illegally. Prohibition comes to mind; one amendment forbidding alcohol consumption, another overturning that one.
Our Rights cannot be repealed by any majority, only their enumerated protections. That’s a hair I will split all day.
One can always argue that rights are subject to no law/legislation. Nice academic exercise. In reality, rights can effectively be removed/destroyed/invalidated/rendered moot or whatever if the enforcement arm of government sets out to impose the “legal” limitations. It matters not that “rights” are handed down from God, He will not be there with an Uzi to help you fend off the LEOs. If you are prevented from exercising any of your “rights” by law/legislation/incarceration, those rights are rendered moot at that point. If the government will not protect/defend/save/allow your rights, you do not have them. Academics make no difference. Look around you; think your “rights” are not more heavily constrained than in decades and centuries past? If you are obeying any of the restrictions on any of your rights, you no longer have them, only an approximation.
When the government refuses to recognize your “rights”, when the courts refuse to protect your “rights”, where do you turn? We see daily that enumerated rights are ignored while made-up rights nowhere found anywhere in the constitution are superior and honored.
All our rights can be repealed legally through constitutional amendments.
All our rights can be repealed legally through executive orders..
Bingo !
Statistical trends like these clearly explain the desperation of the gun banners. The movement of history is against them. People are starting to wake up to the fact that big government really can’t protect them. Maybe the 2nd Amendment is meaningful after all.
The gun banners have to move immediately, before the support for their position erodes even further.
Once support for handguns, CCW, and MSR’s exceeds 60% or so, they won’t be able to ban them, or continue to deceive the population about them.
I really hope we are past the tipping point in terms of public opinion. The Europeans and Australians lost their guns before people woke up. Maybe the American populace will fare better.
The “iron” was actually hottest in the 70s and 80s when a handgun ban almost became a reality. Since then, declining violent crime but the new phenomenon of terrorism stateside has changed the picture significantly.
The call for gun bans after San Bernardino caused a lot of people to raise their eyebrows on what the gun banners were really looking to accomplish — fewer believe this notion that if guns were illegal, terrorists would balk, say “Well I wouldn’t want to break the LAW!” and just go home.
The rising tide of “the police aren’t there to protect you, in fact they may just be there to kick your ass” isn’t helping the antis much either.
If they want to win the White House, this latest poll indicates that they might want to reconsider that position.
Gun control is the Democrats’ signature issue. That party has no other identity except hatred of guns, gun rights and gun owners.
The Dems aren’t so much statists as they are hatists.
Facts dont matter to LIVs and SJWs. They vote as they are told by La Raza, SIEU, the local ward councilor, or Kim Kardashian’s Twitter.
Fact dont matter to the professional left, who are armed with agitprop traded up the chain, to influence and gain credibility as “news” when repeated to the gullible “moderate” democrats via CNN or MSNBC or CBS, when time comes to vote.
We are in the pivotal election of our generations- the “Me” generation boomers who got rich on real estate and their 401k in the 90s, and the Gen X who got hammered in 2008 meltdown, and the Millenials and their kids who will be paying for it all- Obamacare, Medicaid, and other regulatory nonsense for climate change that will drain productivity for the next 30 years. Obama is done, except for annoying speeches at rubber chicken dinners and overseas junkets funded by the UN, or feel-good philanthropies, where old useless leftists go to age out of sight, like Jimmah Cahter.
Progressives talk about guns now, even if it means a loss of more vulnerable seats because otherwise the conversation will be all about F&F, IRSgate, Benghazi, Emails and dangerously failed foreign policy- and all of those have Hillary’s fingerprints all over them.
If HRC gets to be POTUS, you can write off SCOTUS for the next 20 years. There goes your 2a, and then 1a rights. We’ll be a vastly different and subservient country by 2020 if we dont elect ANYONE BUT HILLARY.
Keep calm, carry on, and keep your eyes on the ball, POTG.
I think even the FUDDs finally realize that they’re not just after AR-15/AR-10’s,and AK patterns, but they’re after their Remington 740/7400/750’s as well.
I hope so. Just last week at a LGS I saw an old fella getting all bent out of shape over the recent “run” on ARs… “Nobody needs a monster like that!”… Sometimes I wonder…
I hope you’re right.
My 91 year old grandfather feels that way. He asked me why anyone would need a gun like that, they don’t need need something like that. I told him I have one, that it’s a lot of fun to shoot, and that I have the right to own it. Of course that didn’t change his mind, 91 year old men from Missouri tend be pretty bull headed. He’s also of the mindset that people don’t need to be walking around with guns all the time. I told him I have my CCW and I take it upon myself to keep me and his granddaughter safe (he’s actually her biological grandpa). That shut him up pretty quick lol but I definitely didn’t tell him I had it on me at the time, that didn’t seem like a good idea.
It really shouldn’t matter one bit if it’s 40%-60%, 50%-50% or 80%-20%.
Majority rule is an abomination. So is minority rule for that matter.
No group or individual should be able to dictate to any other group or individual the parameters in which that group or individual may live.
Maybe all the authoritarian types believe in an afterlife or reincarnation or something because they sure do work really hard at making it virtually impossible to spend the short time any of us have during our one go around the way we would want to.
Welcome to your one and only life that will soon end. Here are the absurd, pointless and wholly arbitrary rules* (rules subject to change)
Anarchy is messy, but entertaining.
This news blurb made it to my local CBS radio affiliate in Seattle the other day. The tone with which the on-air female news reporter delivered the headline was hilarious.
You can get the best results by reading it as quoted here – “A new poll shows that, for the first time in DECADES!!! Americans overwhelmingly.. OPPOSE!!!??? a new ban on assault weapons???? (sad inflection goes here)”
You could practically hear the disappointment and confusion dripping from her voice.
People don’t trust .gov anymore. And why should they? Why do you think Trump is doing as well as he is? He ain’t a dem or a rupub.
And personally, I think constitutional carry is the single greatest threat to terrorism.
What? The Folk are losing faith in The Dear Leader and the wonders of National Socialism? Where is General Schoerner and his drumhead court martials?
Yes, but how much of that shift in sentiment is being made by people who will vote on that single issue? Lots of people may not be in favor of an AWB but they may be more concerned with other issues and vote in preference of those – possibly feeling as though they may not be substantially impacted by an AWB, should it come to pass as a consequence of their candidate winning.
I favored gun control after newtown. It was the first tragedy of it’s kind when I was old enough to actually think things through and really feel the loss. I had kids of my own, even. My wife had family in Newtown, even!
Still. It doesn’t take a lot of brain cells to smell a rat. Especially the same old cold rat warmed over for a new tragedy.
I wonder how many others are like me? Not enough methinks.
Considering that Lanza violated something like a dozen gun control laws in committing that heinous act, I’m curious how exactly that thought process went.
Dear Editor,
The Editorial of Saturday, December 5, 2015 “How much bloodshed will it take”
get me cogitating, mulling and thinking about Gun Control, which, of course, was
what the editorial was about, so I wondered about a very recent statement of the
Maryland Deputy Attorney General who said; “we should ban guns altogether, period”
which caused Michael Shatto, me, to ask; “is this even possible in America?
Pretend for a moment that Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto was right and there really is
a gun behind every blade of grass in America, and if there really are over
350,000,000 guns that is a lot of grass, so, if we continue pretending, how would
all of them be collected? Seriously.
We know that not all guns are registered, licensed, accounted for, so how does
government find them? The Gun Control Fairy?
We know that there are people who will not submit to being disarmed regardless of
rules, regulations and laws. Some of them actually believe the Second Amendment.
Is it sensible, making today’s law abiding Citizen a criminal for not turning in guns?
It is said that criminals do not obey laws. Now what?
Then there is a notion that guns do not make people do things, which seems to be
borne out by the lack of bloodbaths at Gun Shows ….
Around a dozen Gun Laws didn’t deter the San Bernardino Terrorist killers.
In fact, the security guard obeyed the law and was unarmed when it happened.
So, I wonder if we could start another game, that we might call;
“Find another Solution to Gun Violence.”
Very Sincerely,
Michael W Shatto
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