Staff Report –

WASHINGTON, D.C. — A majority of Americans favor stronger gun control laws, opinions that are at odds with the Republicans in Congress, where doing anything about guns is a non-starter in spite of a major spike in deadly mass shootings in the United States over the past few years.

According to the latest Gallup poll on the subject, 56 percent of adults in the U.S. say gun laws should be stricter. A minority, 31 percent, believe gun control measures should be kept as they are now but only 12 percent favor gun laws that are less strict.

These public attitudes, collected in surveys before last week’s mass shooting in Lewiston, Maine, are unchanged from a year ago, Gallup says, and they reflect less support for stricter gun laws than the polling firm found in June 2022 after the Uvalde, Texas, school shooting, when 66 percent of Americans favored stronger laws.

“Majorities have consistently favored stricter gun laws since 2015,” Gallup says, “with notable spikes in that view after prominent shootings such as in Uvalde and Parkland, Florida, in 2018.”

Gallup first asked Americans about their preferences for gun laws using the current wording in 1990. Since then, majorities have typically called for stricter laws. The high point reached 78 percent in the initial September 1990 measurement, back when there was heightened concern about crime and Congress was debating the Brady Bill, handgun legislation which passed in 1993.

The exceptions to majority-level support for stricter laws occurred between 2008 and 2014, when between 43 percent and 49 percent favored tougher laws. That trend was temporarily interrupted in December, 2012, when 58 percent said they favored tougher gun control laws after the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting in Newtown, Connecticut.

On Oct. 25, an Army reservist who had been diagnosed with mental health issues and family members and the military had warned that he was hearing voices and had made lethal threats, killed 18 people in shootings at two locations in the Lewiston, Maine.

While Americans do say they want gun laws tightened, they do not favor a ban on handguns for ordinary citizens, something Gallup has asked about since 1959. Just 27 percent of adults in the U.S. believe that no one outside of police or other authorized persons should be able to possess a handgun.

The current figure is on the lower end of what Gallup has measured historically, including 60 percent who favored a ban in 1959 and roughly four in 10 Americans in most surveys conducted between 1975 and 1993. The low point of 19 percent favoring a ban came in an October 2021 survey.

Opposition to a handgun ban is consistent with Americans’ belief that having guns makes people’s homes safer rather than more dangerous, Gallup says. Now 64 percent of Americans say they believe guns make homes safer, while 32 percent believe they make them more dangerous.

Public opinion on this issue has shifted over time, Gallup says. When Gallup first asked this version of the question in 2000, a slim majority of 51 percent believed guns made homes more dangerous places to live, consistent with data that shows most gun deaths happen by accident in homes.

Americans’ views were evenly divided in 2004 and 2006, but by 2014, the majority had come to believe that guns made homes safer, no doubt due to Republican rhetoric and lobbying by the National Rifle Association, not data based on the facts.

“As might be expected, the overwhelming majority of those with a gun in their household, 86 percent, believe guns make homes safer, while just 12 percent disagree. Among those living in households without guns, opinion is divided — 45 percent believe they are safer and 49 percent more dangerous places to live with guns present.

Coming as no surprise, Democrats overwhelmingly believe gun laws should be made stricter and believe guns make homes more dangerous. They are also much more likely than Republicans to favor a handgun ban. In contrast, Republicans generally want gun laws kept as they are now and believe guns make homes safer.

Independents side with Democrats on wanting stricter gun laws, but they are closer to Republicans in believing guns increase home safety rather than decrease it.

Today’s partisan differences on guns contrast with relatively modest gaps two decades ago.

In 2001, 61 percent of Democrats and 44 percent of Republicans wanted gun laws to be stricter. Since then, there has been a 27-percentage-point increase in the percentage of Democrats favoring stricter laws and an 18-point decrease among Republicans. Independents’ views haven’t changed.

Compared with 2000, the percentage of Republicans in favor of a handgun ban has fallen 19 points. Democrats’ and independents’ views on this issue are generally similar to what they were in 2000.

The percentage of Republicans who think guns make homes safer has nearly doubled since 2000, from 44 percent to 86 percent. Independents also show a large shift in the same direction, from 36 percent in 2000 to 66 percent. Democrats are slightly more likely today (37 percent) than in 2000 (28 percent) to think guns make homes safer.

Only 44 percent of adults in the U.S. say they have a gun in their home or on their property, with 30 percent saying the gun belongs to them personally and the remainder saying it belongs to another household member. These percentages are steady compared with recent years, although Gallup measured higher rates of household gun possession, between 50 percent and 53 percent, in the early 1990s.

Gun ownership rates have increased among Republicans over the past two decades — 45 percent of Republicans say they personally own a gun, and 58 percent live in a gun household. In 2000, the figures were 32 percent and 48 percent, respectively.

Among independents, ownership rates are similar to what they were in 2000, with 29 percent personally owning a gun and 43 percent living in a gun household.

Democratic gun ownership has declined slightly. Now, 18 percent of Democrats say they personally own a gun, and 29 percent live in a gun household, compared with 23 percent and 36 percent in 2000.

The new poll confirms prior years’ finding that U.S. gun owners typically have more than one gun. Currently, 29 percent of Americans who have a gun in their household report having one gun, while 33 percent say they have between two and four guns and 22 percent have five or more and 16 percent of respondents from gun households would not disclose how many guns they own.

Gun owners may now be owning more total guns than in the past. U.S. adults with a gun in their household say their house has an average of 4.9 guns. In prior surveys, the average number of guns owned ranged between 4.0 and 4.5. However, because of smaller sample sizes of gun owners in each survey and a large variation in the reported number of guns, the current estimate is not significantly higher than past measures from a statistical perspective.

Gallup’s Implications

“The gun issue has played a major role in U.S. political debate in recent years, and each mass shooting, such as the one that occurred in Maine last week, returns the issue to the forefront,” Gallup says. “Though the two major U.S. political parties are increasingly divided on the issue, Americans as a whole have been largely consistent in wanting gun laws to be stricter but also opposing a handgun ban. Their views on whether guns make homes safer or more dangerous have shifted, with a solid majority now believing guns make homes safer.”

Last year, in response to the Uvalde shooting, Congress passed and President Joe Biden signed into law bipartisan legislation designed to address gun violence, which was hailed as the first major federal legislation on the issue in decades. The legislation expanded background checks on gun purchases for young adults, increased mental health funding, expanded prohibitions on gun ownership for people convicted of domestic violence, and created incentives for states to pass “red flag” laws.

Americans apparently did not see those steps as going far enough to prevent gun violence, however, with no decrease since the law was signed in the percentage wanting laws to be tougher. That could reflect that Americans favor a number of proposals that have been offered as antidotes to gun violence — including longer waiting periods for gun purchases and an assault weapons ban — that were not included in the legislation.

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