In a first, more Americans support gun rights than gun control, poll finds

By a margin of 52 percent to 46 percent, Americans say protecting gun rights is more important than gun control, according to the Pew Research Center. Opinion has shifted markedly since the Sandy Hook massacre two years ago.

|
Rebecca Cook/Reuters/File
A woman carries a 9mm Smith & Wesson pistol in her waistband during a rally in support of the Michigan Open Carry gun law in Romulus, Michigan, in April 2014.

Almost two years after the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., Americans' support for gun rights is rising.

By a margin of 52 percent to 46 percent, Americans say protecting the rights of gun owners is more important than gun control, according to a survey by the Pew Research Center released Wednesday. It is the first time Pew found more support for gun ownership than gun control in more than two decades of surveys on the issue.

“Support for gun rights has edged up from earlier this year, and marks a substantial shift in attitudes since shortly after the Newtown school shooting,” the Pew report says. The second anniversary of the massacre is this Sunday.

Right after the mass shooting, in which a gunman killed 27 people and then himself, the balance of opinion favored gun control. But since January 2013, support for gun rights over gun control has risen from 45 percent to 52 percent, while the percentage who prioritize gun control has gone down, from 51 percent to 46 percent.

Among African-Americans, Pew found a dramatic shift in opinion. A majority of blacks, 54 percent, now say gun ownership does more to protect people than to endanger personal safety. Two years ago, only 29 percent of black Americans held that view.

But the portion of the sample identifying as African-American was small: Only 132 out of 1,507 people surveyed were black non-Hispanic, with a margin of error of plus or minus 9.8 percentage points.

Among whites, pro-gun views have also risen, but not as sharply. Some 62 percent now see guns as a protection, up from 54 percent in December 2012, according to Pew. The margin of error for the white sample is plus or minus 3.4 percentage points. The survey was taken between Dec. 3 and 7.

Pew also found that partisan differences over guns have widened in the past two years.

“As was the case in December 2012, a majority of Democrats (60 percent) say guns do more to put people’s safety at risk, while only about a third (35 percent) say they do more to protect people from becoming crime victims,” Pew reports. “By contrast, 8 in 10 Republicans say guns do more to protect people from becoming crime victims, up 17 points from December 2012.” 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

QR Code to In a first, more Americans support gun rights than gun control, poll finds
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/DC-Decoder/2014/1210/In-a-first-more-Americans-support-gun-rights-than-gun-control-poll-finds
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe