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.
This is why we're (supposed to be) a Constitutional Republic.
Poll, just like Barry's opinion, don't mean crap on this subject.
Who they claimed was polled and who did the polling:
“METHODOLOGY – This ABC News/Washington Post poll was conducted by telephone Jan. 10-13, 2013, among a random national sample of 1,001 adults, including landline and cell-phone-only respondents. Results have a margin of sampling error of 3.5 points, including design effect. Partisan divisions are 33-24-37 percent, Democrats-Republicans-independents.
The survey was produced for ABC News by Langer Research Associates of New York, N.Y., with sampling, data collection and tabulation by Abt-SRBI of New York, N.Y.”
If people are for “Gun control” than how come gun sales have been going through the roof..Hey Media..SCREW YOU we know what is going on here..Mark Levin is talking about this phony piece of garbage poll right now..its all nonsense to promote the left wing agenda of abolishing the 2nd Amendment
Meh, did they even call anyone outside of a big East Coast city? I guarantee I don’t actually know a soul in favor of this rubbish and I do actually know a fair number of Democrats.
Yeah, the poll doesn’t reflect reality.
What is “phony” and “garbage” about it other than you don’t like the results?
They never asked me, or anyone I know....
I favor bringing back “Old Sparky.”
They polled NY Slimes and Wah Compost, and ABC newsrooms.
This crap really doesn’t matter anymore. It’s gone beyond this sort of attempted manipulation.
The 1st response to the post...and it is a PERFECT response...and it was delivered in less than 2 minutes.
PERFECTION BUMP!
You do realize it is mathematically possible for 1) most of the population to be in favor of some degree of new restrictions on guns and 2) gun sales to have recently skyrocketed to BOTH be true, don't you?
Excuse me while I call BS on this ‘poll’. I’d say that the record gun sales in the past month are a better indicator of public sentiment than some propaganda push-poll by a bunch of left-wing hacks.
Was this a poll of newsrooms, faculty lounges, ACORN, Soros-affiliated groups, union leaders, Unitarian & Quaker congregations, Code Pink, Democrat campaign headquarters and teacher’s lounges?
Where did they take the poll? Gun shows? Walmart? Local Sporting Goods Store? I think not.
What a load of pure unadulterated bullshit. I'll bet 90 % of those polled know absolutely nothing about gun show and private gun sales let alone background checks.
I don’t give a rat’s ass what the majority of people think about my God given rights.
I would prefer to have a Constitutional Republic, but if that isn’t possible, I damn sure intend to be in charge.
I realize nobody actually bothered to read far enough to learn this, but if it is a rigged, propaganda poll, why do most of the respondents support the NRA armed guards in school plan?
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