Posted on 01/14/2013 4:15:37 PM PST by Red Steel
Americans support a wide range of new measures to combat gun violence, including majority support for background checks, an assault weapons ban, and placing armed police in schools according to a pair of new polls released Monday.
The surveys, preformed by Pew Research and the Washington Post/ABC News, both find that Americans generally support a broad array of efforts in the aftermath of the Newtown, Conn. elementary school shooting that left 20 children and 6 school employees dead.
Among the most popular proposal in either survey was closing the so-called "gun show" loophole, which allows the private sale of guns without a background check. Some 88 percent of those in the WaPo/ABC survey and 85 percent of those in the Pew poll supported such a measure.
Establishing a central database to track gun purchases also earned broad support, with two-thirds of respondents in the Pew survey and 71 percent of the WaPo/ABC respondents supporting such a plan. And majorities of both the WaPo/ABC (65 percent) and Pew (54 percent) surveys said they support eliminating the sale of high capacity magazines for semi-automatic weapons.
On Monday, President Obama said each of those measures were likely to find their way into a legislative package he will detail later in the week.
"The things that I’ve said in the past -- the belief that we have to have stronger background checks, that we can do a much better job in terms of keeping these magazine clips with high capacity out of the hands of folks who shouldn’t have them, an assault weapons ban that is meaningful -- that those are things I continue to believe make sense," Obama said at a White House press conference.
The assault weapons ban is likely to be a stumbling block in Congress, where Republicans have signaled likely opposition — and even Democrats have cautioned the president. During a weekend appearance on a Nevada PBS affiliate, Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid (R-Nev.) said such legislation was unlikely to pass Congress.
“Let’s be realistic. In the Senate, we’re going to do what we think can get through the House. And I’m not going to be going through a bunch of these gyrations just to say we’ve done something because if we’re really legislators, the purpose of it is to pass legislation,” Reid said.
But that too garners majority support among those surveyed, with 55 percent of Pew respondents and 58 percent of WaPo/ABC respondents saying they support such a ban.
Voters are also broadly supportive of a plan floated by the National Rifle Association to increase the number of armed security guards or police officers in school buildings. Nearly two-thirds of Pew respondents and 55 percent of those surveyed in the WaPo/ABC poll said they supported such a measure, which President Obama told NBC News he was "skeptical" about
That's despite generally unfavorable views of the NRA itself. In the Washington Post poll, only 36 percent of those surveyed said they had a favorable opinion of the group, while a plurality — 38 percent — said the NRA had too much influence over the gun debate. Three in 10 said the group had the "right amount" of influence, while just under a quarter said the NRA had too little influence.
Democrats are far more likely to support new restrictions on guns and ammunition, with no proposal other than closing the gun show loophole and restricting sales to the mentally ill garnering more than half of Republicans, according to the Pew Poll. Republicans are, however, more supportive of putting armed security guards in school, by a 73-62 percent margin.
Both polls were administered in New York. That would be like having DV advocates on Rhode Island administering a poll on DV. ;-)
I would be skeptical if this highly political pollster told me if the snow is white.
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“Our work is informed by the rigor of our methods, acuity of our analysis and integrity of our approach. We’re gratified that the outcome of our efforts has been recognized with praise from clients and colleagues alike.
“Gary Langer, who is our great pollster…”
Former ABC News Anchor Peter Jennings, “Larry King Live,” 9/13/02
“When Gary Langer talks, the White House listens.”
Former ABC News Anchor Ted Koppel, “Nightline,” 9/2/04
“No one I know can write polls so cleanly, read them so accurately and speak about them so clearly.”
ABC News Anchor George Stephanopoulos
“There is no one in the media who understands public opinion better than Gary Langer.”
ABC News Correspondent Cokie Roberts”
http://www.langerresearch.com/content.php?i=5
I helped with a ‘90s study that showed feminist subjectivity skewing feminist research, BTW. ;-)
Show me something that works, something that would have kept those 20 kids alive and I will back it. Anything else is just political grandstanding. Obama is good at that.
Shows most Americans haven’t a ****ing clue as to what an “assault weapon” is.
I agree with others here. The actions of America do not agree with this poll.
If you substitute the term ".22 rifle" for "assault weapon", you'd get a totally different response.
Do so! They are black. Time to ban the color black.
The average citizen has no concept of the Second Amendment. That is why we have the representative system where citizens are represented by those who are expected to know enough about the Constitution so that laws are not passed that violate it. We should be operating like a Republic and not mob type rule.
Here’s what it’s all about. They keep talking about “close the gun-show loophole”. The reality is that the vendors selling guns have to follow the laws and send in a NIC’s check. What they are after is to keep us a private citizen from selling our guns to another private citizen without jumping through their hurtles. In NC our previous AG (now Ex.Gov.) managed to get a bill passed that requires private citizens to demand a pistol permit when they sell a pistol. What the heck am I going to do with a paper permit from a private buyer except wipe my A$$ with it. I am not an FFL dealer but they want me to act like one. Totally Insane!
Are the polls wrong? That’s a good question. Certainly after the disaster last November we shouldn’t be so quick to dismiss them. On the other hand, I don’t really doubt that pollsters would cook their results on something like gun control. But I’m not saying Pew and ABC have done so here. Frankly I’m surprised support for shredding the Second Amendment and banning ‘assault rifles’ isn’t above 70%.
But remember there was a Gallup poll taken in December that showed 51% opposed to banning ‘assault rifles’. And that was taken soon after the tragedy when one would expect support for gun bans to be highest. So which pollster is right? I don’t know. I hope it’s Gallup in this case.
I’m distressed by how almost all polls show strong majority support for some sort of gun registration/tracking system. I mean, this is undoubtedly the first step towards confiscation, so it makes no sense to me to support such a scheme if you also claim to support the right to own guns.
Your demographic analysis is spot on, unfortunately. The fastest growing ethnic groups - Asians and Hispanics - will not support the Second Amendment. They will support much stricter gun control. They will support various gun bans. So it’s absolutely true to say that our largely accidental, and mostly unwanted policy of unending mass immigration will play a major part in destroying the Second Amendment. I think it’s fair to say that to support mass immigration is to support the eventual destruction of gun owning rights.
I think it may already be too late. It’s pure fantasy to think the GOP will ever break even with immigrant communities. And with the GOP, led by Rubio and Ryan, about to sign on to amnesty for illegal aliens and increases in already-too-high levels of legal immigration, the demographic destruction of any conservative movement will be hastened. The only hope would be to avoid a path to citizenship for most illegals, and to reduce future legal immigration, but no Republican will run on such proposals.
Every "no" response is recorded as a call for "broader gun controls".
That's the reality, yeah.
It didn't have to be that way. We are nation of immigrants, and if we taught our new Americans to understand and respect the Constitution, there would have been no reason to fear even high levels of immigration. Unfortunately conservatives ceded the education, media and entertainment establishments to the left. Immigrants know and care nothing about the Constitution, why free markets work, what made America great, etc.
I think it may already be too late
I suspect this is true. We still have to go through the motions and hope we're wrong, but yeah, I think we've likely passed the tipping point.
Who is one to believe? The media? Or their own lying eyes watching AR's fly off the shelf?
According to Rasmussen, Obama has a 54% approval rating among likely voters as of today. Those are the gun control supporters. That still leaves millions of people who disagree. If even a fraction of those who oppose gun control rush out to buy guns, that would obviously explain the significant increase in sales.
Both things are likely true. The majority of Americans just voted for Obama and support him and his policies, AND lots (there's a population of 60 million people who voted against Hussein) of Americans who don't support Obama and oppose gun control are out buying guns.
Who did they poll? The northeast.
And we remember how things went last time when we thought we had the election in the bag...Obama knows all he has to do is tell the weak-minded how “everyone else” is thinking about an issue (the bandwagon approach) and they will jump right over the cliff into the sea every time. Surely this man has Satan’s backing. How else can you explain his fervent control over the weak-minded fools? One thing he’s done is make even a high school janitor look like a better choice for the job...
They pobably polled Putin, Ahmenijad, Castro... You know the “regular” guys
May G-d have mercy on our souls...
5.56mm
Probably had photos of each child that died on the same page that the polls were on
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