Two major polls came out this past week that show decreasing support for gun control among the American public. Quinnipiac reports that 49 percent of Americans oppose more restrictive gun laws, with only 45 percent supporting them. This is the first time Quinnipiac has found support for more gun control falling below 50 percent in six years.
Gallup found somewhat more enthusiasm for gun restrictions (52 percent). Still, that’s the lowest it’s been since 2014. Also according to Gallup, among political independents, anti-gun attitudes have declined by 15 percent since 2020.
These results really shouldn’t come as a surprise, given the historic homicide spike of 2020, the continuation of this violent trend in 2021, and the record numbers of Americans who are buying guns (many of them for the first time).
For many Americans, the heart of this debate—your right to defend yourself and others, in life-or-death situations—is becoming clearer. While they may have reflexively taken the anti-gun side in the past, either as a nice-sounding abstraction or as part of their societally mandated political identity, they now they have skin in the game and things look a little different.
The news isn’t all good for gun rights advocates, however. Among Democrats, both polls found 91 percent endorsing more gun control—a rising number, by Gallup’s reckoning. In fact, the figure appears to be the highest level of gun control support ever found by Gallup among Democrats, just above the 90 percent reported in 2017.
There are two possible explanations for this 91 percent peak figure. The most straightforward explanation is simply that more Democrats are supporting gun control. But another possibility is that some who previously identified as Democrats are now leaving the party over issues such as gun rights—thereby resulting in a higher proportion of remaining self-identified Democrats who favor more restrictions.
Either way, it seems extremely unlikely that Democrats will “ditch the anti-gun rhetoric” ahead of next year’s mid-term elections, as the political consultant Richard Feldman advised them to do in a recent Politico editorial. They may even cite these new statistics—showing the overwhelming popularity of gun control within the Democrat base—as reason for doubling down against Americans’ self-defense rights.
Feldman is right to highlight gun rights as an emerging wedge issue between Democrats and various constituencies, specifically “rural and working-class voters . . . Latino voters and independents and non-college-educated women.” As he further notes, groups eagerly courted by Democrats—“women and people of color”—are the ones driving the surge in first-time gun sales.
Feldman is also exactly right to highlight the recent political upset in New Jersey where truck driver Ed Durr, spurred by his inability to get a concealed carry permit, shocked the system by defeating state Senate President Steve Sweeney.
Even so, can the committed core of gun control activists really be expected to back off and become more reasonable just because their position is becoming less popular? I don’t see it happening.
Democrats, Feldman says . . .
…need to learn how to talk about firearm rights and crime issues without demonizing millions of voters who own guns. What Democrats don’t realize is that the very voters they are losing by the tens of thousands each cycle are also the people who account for the largest surge of new firearm sales.
That’s good advice, but it’s hard to imagine a party so overwhelmingly committed to gun control ever taking Feldman’s advice, even if that’s necessary to win elections.
The reasons for this stubbornness—cultural, psychological, ideological—are complex. But the bottom line is simple: the record 91 percent of Democrats who support gun control, as it is losing ground nationwide, are not suddenly going to change course. They are locked in, even if many members of their perceived base are not. Many of these are so-called “true believers.”
Richard Feldman thinks Democrats “can start by supporting a sensible ‘national carry’ program. They can fund firearm safety education . . . They can support the import of long guns for self-defense.”
A few outlying or uniquely-situated Democrats might get away with such things. The rest of them, though, have that 91 percent figure to contend with—along with their own ideological blinders.
Those blinders can make it tough to read the room. During the same week that Gallup and Quinnipiac released their poll numbers, Beto O’Rourke—most famous for saying “Hell yes, we’re going to take your AR-15” on live national television—announced his campaign for Governor of Texas in 2022.
Beto says he is “going to every single part of this state . . . You can’t be too rural. You can’t be too red.” But I bet that the Democrat Party abandoning its gun control platform is about as likely as Beto actually trying to take anyone’s AR-15 during his travels.
Cody J. Wisniewski (@TheWizardofLawz) is the director of Mountain States Legal Foundation’s Center to Keep and Bear Arms. He primarily focuses on Second Amendment issues but is happy so long as he is reminding the government of its enumerated powers and constitutional restrictions.
To learn more about the Center to Keep and Bear Arms’ work and support their fight for your natural right to self-defense—from both man and tyranny—visit www.mslegal.org/2A and donate today!
I don’t give a shit what they think. I think I’ll buy another firearm.
A lot of people used Joe’s stimulus checks to do just that.
I been buying ethic firearms as of late. Found a Polish M44 And being trying to find a Siamese Mauser for my son for both his cultural halves.
After the last 18 months you’d have to be a true beliver to want MORE gun restrictions. The fact many wienies still want more control is sad. And scary. Lock n load. The black Friday sales are pathetic. All I want is cheap ammo(what’s with my LGS’s not revealing sales yet?).
Former, one of my favourite GS started it’s Black Friday sale yesterday. Besides, firearms they have ammo. I bought two cases of quail loads a month ago. Walked in, picked them up up off one of two pallets sitting in the middle of the floor, paid for them and left. Didn’t look at handgun or rifle ammo. Got thousands of rounds of that. Everyone should have. A long time ago.
Oh I got ammo. Just want more. Cheap-er. Been shooting the most ever. I’d love to shoot 200 rounds instead pf 50…
I have been saying for a long time that the upside of having Democrats in power doing the ridiculous things we see daily is that their own people don’t like what they are doing and are finally realizing how little they care about anyone but themselves.
The vast majority of the 45% who support Gun Control assume Gun Control is sugar and spice and everything nice…Little do they know what filth Gun Control really is. That is why I created the following crash course to help the vast majority of the 45% decide who and what they are…
1) The Second Amendment is one thing.
2) The criminal misuse of firearms, bricks, bats, knives, vehicles, etc. is another thing.
3) History Confirms Gun Control in any shape, matter or form is a racist and nazi based Thing.
More people own guns, less people want to be controlled by a government that does not want people to own guns.
Rest assured 44.9% of the 45% do not have a clue how deeply Gun Control is rooted in racism and genocide. For them Gun Control is sugar and spice and everything nice. They certainly will not hear that coming from the media and sadly from far too many gun owners either. If you are not telling the Truth About The History of Gun Control you are part of the problem and not the solution.
On the other hand…Happy Thanksgiving to you and yours.
Joseph Rosenbaum, Anthony Huber, and Gaige Grosskreutz were wanna be gun grabbers, now two are no longer with the Democrat party (but will still vote!) and the third is forever marked as a left winger.
“forever marked as a left winger” that thar is funny, don’t care WHO you are.
Damn shame Kyle didn’t get one more round off for that POS.
YEP TWO TYPE OF PEOPLE , THOSE’S THAT ARM THEMSELVES AND THOSE THAT DON’T .
YEAH MAY HAVE TO BUY ME ANOTHER WEAPON ,, UUUH REALLY NEED SAVE FOR MORE AMMO
With the Rittenhouse verdict, and flash mobs looting stores, the gun sales numbers will only increase.
Little Caesars took to damn long so I showed them my AK-47. Expedite things. Now the police want to charge me? Stupid gun control laws.
During Covid I made money selling was selling switches and pot. Got me a Glock and AR15 for a protection. Damn cops busted me because, get this, “switches are used to turn a semi-automatic handgun into a fully automatic gun”. I blame gun control.
The “gun control movement” is not about gun control but about control over the population.
It’s about gun control.
They want to be in control of all the guns. They’ve even told you why.
One and the same, guys.
Keep peeling away D constituencies.
Warn flaky R’s that a cave is a grave.
Make converts and bring them to the range.
I would pay a lot of money to see Beto trying to take guns away from anyone. I’d pay more if he would come to my door trying to take guns. Beto is a waste of good oxygen.
Insanity is not really curable. Every time I hear someone say “Are there any good Demorats” or the Demorat Party has been taken over by blah blah blah. I seem to recall the Dems are the Party of Slavery, KKK, Jim Crow, Black Code. They are still the racists yet the R’s get blamed. History gets twisted with the help of their media allies.
Always make me think of “The greatest trick the Devil ever pulled was convincing the world he didn’t exist” Politicians in general do not have our best interests in mind. R’s are control lite, Dems throughout their existence are the Commies, the “Not one drop of black blood rule” by the Dems was even a bit much for the Nazis. If they think you are a bot extreme, they need to only look into a mirror.
I have always found it interesting that the American south is so heavily said to be racist but yet most of the black population in America live in the south. This is a rather profound contradiction. Particularly as I watch black families move from places like Chicago to southern states like Texas.
It is equally interesting that we had eight years of a black president with no issues from the KKK.
That’s because the KKK is the first Democrat political action committee, they would never harass Obama.
Well fake Hispanic Beto, has a new commercial saying he supports the 2nd Amendment!
His am I going to take your AKR,Hell ya.
His handlers apparently told him “you been lie your hind end off” until you get elected
Comments are closed.