ATLANTA (AP) — The slaying of five dozen people in Las Vegas did little to change Americans’ opinions about gun laws, a poll finds.
The nation is closely divided on whether restricting firearms would reduce such mass shootings or homicides, though a majority favors tighter laws as they have for several years, according to the poll from The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.
The massive divide on stricter limits remains firmly in place.
The survey was conducted from Oct. 12-16, about two weeks after 64-year-old Stephen Paddock fired on a crowded musical festival taking place on across the street from his hotel room, killing 58 and wounding more than 540 before killing himself.
In this latest survey, 61 percent said the country’s gun laws should be tougher, while 27 percent would rather see them remain the same and 11 percent want them to be less strict. That’s similar to the results of an AP-GfK poll in July 2016.
Nearly 9 in 10 Democrats, but just a third of Republicans, want to see gun laws made stricter.
Kenny Garcia, a 31-year-old resident of Stockton, California, and a former gun owner, said he’s torn about whether tighter gun laws would lead to a reduction in mass shootings.
“That’s the hard part,” Garcia said. “How do you control something like that when you have no idea where it’s coming from, whether you control the guns or not?”
Still, he’s frustrated by easy availability of some devices — such as the “bump stocks” used by the Las Vegas shooter to make his semi-automatic guns mimic the more rapid fire of automatic weapons.
“They give people access to these things, then they question after something horrible happens, but yet the answer is right there,” he said. “It just doesn’t make sense.”
About half of Americans said they think making it more difficult to buy a gun would reduce the number of mass shootings in the country, and slightly under half said it would reduce the number of homicides.
About half felt it would reduce the number of accidental shootings, 4 in 10 that it would reduce the number of suicides and only about a third felt it would reduce gang violence.
Alea Leonard, a 21-year-old data analyst and full-time student, said she’s torn about whether the nation’s gun laws should be more strict, in part because different parts of the country have different experiences with crime.
“Here, I feel like everyone should be able to carry a .22 (caliber handgun) on them,” said Leonard, who lives in Orange County, California. Her neighborhood, she said, has a high crime rate and in the five months since she moved there, a 14-year-old was shot in the back of the head.
She grew up in California, but spent some summers in Wyoming. She never before felt the need to have a gun but is now researching what it would take to carry a firearm.
There are indications of a generational divide on the issue. Most of those in the survey who are younger than 30 said they believe stricter gun laws would result in fewer mass shootings, homicides and accidental shootings.
The poll also found that a majority of Americans disapprove of how President Donald Trump is handling gun control. Trump is the first president since Ronald Reagan to address the annual meeting of the National Rifle Association. One of his sons has voiced strong support for easing the restrictions on gun silencers.
Some 59 percent voiced disapproval with Trump’s handling of the issue, while 40 percent said they approved. About half of Americans age 60 and over approve of how he is handling the issue, compared with fewer than 4 in 10 of those under 60. Politically, 79 percent of people who identify as Republican approve of Trump’s handling of gun issues, while 61 percent of independents and 89 percent of Democrats disapprove. Sixty percent of gun owners approve of Trump on the issue.
The poll also showed Americans divided over which party, if any, they trust to handle gun control. Close to a third give Democrats the edge while 28 percent prefer Republicans, and 31 percent say they don’t trust either party.
The AP-NORC poll of 1,054 adults was conducted Oct. 12-16 using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.
Respondents were first selected randomly using address-based sampling methods, and later interviewed online or by phone.
Well I can say I haven’t changed my stance. I want assault weapons and ammo to be banned,
% background check, including mental evaluations, rescinding of the stand your ground laws and ban on concealed weapons.
The issue is tougher than either side wants to admit. It isn’t just freedom and it isn’t just disarming. It is balancing the interests of all in a diverse nation.
Ours is a very large and diverse country. Despite mass shootings and highly publicized gun violence most people will never personally experience gun violence. A lot of people think gun violence is the other community’s problem. Frankly a lot of people in the white community think of gun violence as a black problem. This is probably made worse by local action news every where.
We have a mass media that promotes gun violence in many, many ways including TV, movies, local Action News and Cable Networks that run loops of mass shootings day after day.
Most deaths by firearm (2 out of 3) are self inflicted so we are really talking about around 10,000 firearm homicides a year. Way, way too many but we are a nation of over 300,000,000 people.
Gun violence is a big culture war issue for politicians. Both sides make money and gain influence off gun violence. That NRA and gun industry make money not solving the problem is obvious, but don’t forget the politicians on the other side who turn out for funerals in the black community but the next day rarely ever do anything positive to improve community policing and improve the lives of teenagers.
This issue is not going to be solved until Americans decide to solve it and they aren’t as long as both sides profit from not solving it. Address inequality. Address poor policing in black communities. Improve education. Take the money out of the NRA. None of it is going to happen until we tell the politicians to start solving problems. Help every young person find a job with value and a future.
Gun violence is still way, way too high. Something reasonable needs to be done to reduce it. The most reasonable solutions are to remove easy access to handguns. Serious background checks should be mandatory.
Beyond that we have to remember that we are a big diverse nation. We are never going to talk people into giving up their hunting rifles and shotguns. By the way that has been proven over and over again in countries with strict gun laws. Even England permits long guns if you have a reason to have one (and reasons are as easy as belonging to a skeet club.) Many are convinced by our media they need to walk around armed to protect themselves from the random muggers that don’t exist. Tell Action News to pay more attention to city council meetings and less to stray shootings.
Oh, here is my own pet hobby horse. Teach young people how to shoot. Take the glamour out of it for them. I know that sounds crazy but in large swaths of America guns are viewed as tools for sport and hunting, not as weapons to kill people. Part of the reason for that is rural people learn how to hunt and shoot from an early age. They don’t think of the family shotgun as a weapon to use against the kid next door.
I guess it would be wrong to call for concealed and open carry in legislative galleries.
Clearly it’s too soon.
The profit motive drives this insanity. Under President Obama people were stampeded to stock up on guns and ammunition and ridiculously high capacity magazines because some marketing genius told people they were going to lose their guns to a Black President. Now we get the Armageddon scare of nuclear war, and post war survival will require an even bigger butt load of guns and accessories because capturing Mormon food stashes will be very competitive. Through the years the marketing pitch has changed to accommodate whatever scared people at the moment; Bad Guys With Guns ™, Chicago, Black on Black violence, Mexican rapists, and my personal favorite, active shooters in crowds.
We get whatever it takes to create and stimulate a market for a product that needs serious regulation due to its inherent dangers. That whatever it takes jive has preempted any legislative relief and so allowing pols to say we have just the right amount of mass shootings and murders. People who lack a BS detector agree.