Vegas shooting doesn’t change opinions on guns: poll

The slaying of five dozen people in Las Vegas did little to change Americans’ opinions about gun laws.

The nation is closely divided on whether restricting firearms would reduce such mass shootings or homicides, though a majority favour tighter laws as they have for several years, according to a new 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 Stephen Paddock, 64, fired on a crowded musical festival from his hotel room, killing 58 and wounding more than 540 before killing himself. It’s the deadliest mass shooting in modern U.S. history.

In this latest survey, 61 per cent said the country’s gun laws should be tougher, while 27 per cent would rather see them remain the same and 11 per cent 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, 31, a resident of Stockton, Calif., 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.