Many back gun laws, but opposition is louder
WASHINGTON >> Majorities of U.S. adults think mass shootings would occur less often if guns were harder to get, and that schools and other public places have become less safe than they were two decades ago, polling shows.
Still, public attitudes on guns and gun policy are complicated, and the issue has seen little by way of federal legislative changes in more than a decade. In the wake of Tuesday's massacre at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, Democratic governors and lawmakers are pleading for gun restrictions. Reforms will meet Republican resistance both in Congress and state legislatures and are unlikely to advance.
While it's not unusual for polling to show higher support for restrictions among the general public after a mass shooting, attitudes on gun regulation are overall rather stable over time, said John Roman, senior fellow at NORC at the University of Chicago.
In 2020, about half of voters in the presidential election said U.S. gun laws should be made stricter, according to AP VoteCast, compared with about a third saying they should be left as they are and only about 1 in 10 saying they should be made less strict.
What else do Americans think about gun laws?
In March 2019, an APNORC poll showed a majority of U.S. adults — 58% — saying they thought there would be fewer mass shootings in the U.S. if it were harder for people to legally obtain guns. Many specific measures that would curb access to guns or ammunition also get majority support, according to polls.
There is widespread agreement on one measure in particular: making private gun sales subject to background checks.
Attitudes on other gun policies vary starkly by partisanship. For example, new data from an AP-NORC poll conducted earlier in May shows 51% of U.S. adults favor a nationwide ban on the sale of AR-15 rifles and similar semiautomatic weapons, while 32% are opposed. An additional 18% say they hold neither opinion. Seventy-five percent of Democrats but just 27% of Republicans were in favor.
Erica Martinez, a 37-yearold in Lincoln, Nebraska, said she was “horrified” and “irate” after Tuesday's massacre and that there's obviously a gun problem in this country. Laws need to be stricter, she said, and it should be harder for someone to get a gun.
“These school shootings are becoming more prevalent now, and there's just too many innocent little lives that are lost because this 18-year-old kid was able to just go and buy a gun,” Martinez said. “I honestly and truly think that it could have been prevented.”
Gun ownership in the US
In April 2021, a Pew Research Center survey showed gun owners much more likely than those without guns to support expanding concealed carry and shortening waiting periods for legal gun purchases. Gun owners were much less likely to back bans on high-capacity ammunition magazines and assault-type weapons.
Forty-six percent of U.S. adults report living in a household with a gun, according to a March poll from NORC. Five percent said they purchased a gun for the first time during the pandemic, and those first time gun owners tend to share policy preferences with long term gun owners, NORC's Roman said.