New surveys by ABC News/Washington Post and CBS News/New York Times show that the drop in support for a nationwide ban in so-called “assault weapons” mirrors the general decline in support for gun control that has been observed in the last couple of decades (here and here). The average of the two surveys weighted by the number of people surveyed shows that 6.9% more people oppose a national ban than support it. …
The new PEW Research Center Poll shows that gun control is the strongest issue that Republicans have over Democrats, and that gap has been growing. And while Democrats have been getting stronger against Republicans on abortion, foreign policy, taxes and terrorism, the one issue that Republicans have been getting stronger compared to Democrats is gun control.…
For almost all categories of Americans, there is significant support for the notion that allowing people to carry permitted concealed handguns makes Americans safer. Only Democrats and those with a post-graduate education do not believe this, but that doesn’t mean that these individuals believe that carrying represents a risk. If the question were asked whether allowing people to carry concealed handguns either made us safer or had no effect, it is possible that the results would be even more overwhelming (after all while the vast majority of research finds that concealed handgun laws improve safety, no peer-reviewed research by criminologists or economists find that it increases murder, rape or robbery rates). …
Last November and December, we posted discussions of recent Gallup, Washington Post-ABC News, and PEW surveys showing that people viewed gun ownership made them feel safer. Now a new Rasmussen survey shows that Americans feel safer when others in their neighborhood owns guns.
…American Voters overwhelming prefer living in a neighborhood where they have the option of owning a gun than to live where nobody is allowed to be armed.
The Washington Times covered our survey of economists that was conducted by Professor Gary Mauser. Stephen Dinan’s article that compared our survey to one done at the same time by David Hemenway:
…. . . Take Mr. Mauser’s question about self-defense and crimes: While 83 percent of economists believed guns were more likely to be used for self-defense, nearly three-quarters of Mr.
The CPRC is releasing a new survey entitled: “Economists’ views on guns: Crime, suicides, and right-to-carry concealed handgun laws” (shorter published version is available here). The survey of economists conducted from August 25th to September 12th 2014 found interesting results including:
Other survey questions are available here.
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We have pointed out the conflicting polls on the percent of population owning guns, but there is a good reason to believe that these surveys have missed any increase in gun ownership because of an increasing distrust that Americans have in telling pollsters whether they own a gun. A survey by Zogby Analytics shows that gun owners are almost 6 percentage points more likely than others to tell pollsters that it is none of their business that they own a gun (we had to combine the answers for former gun owners and never been a gun owner to get the total percentages for those who don’t own a gun).…
John Lott’s newest piece at Fox News starts this way:
…A new Pew Research Center survey finds that, for the first time in their surveys, the majority of Americans oppose more gun control. Gallup and CNN polls tell a similar story. Opposition to gun control has been increasing over at least the last couple of decades.
The newly released Pew Research Center survey shows that 47 percent of Americans want to “protect the right of Americans to own guns” versus 50 percent who support “control of gun ownership.” It also supports other polls by Gallup and CNN that show that opposition to more gun control has been increasing over time.…
According to Gallup, there has been a massive increase in the percent of the population who views that safety is increased by having guns in the home. With the exception of Democrats, every single demographic group that Gallup breaks out thinks that having a gun in the home makes people safer (even women by a a 58 to 34 percent majority).…
