U.S.A. –-(Ammoland.com)- Congress is returning to Capitol Hill as two polls—one by USA Today and the other by ABC News and the Washington Post—show strong public support for so-called “universal background checks” and a majority would back a ban on so-called “assault weapons.:”
However, the USA Today/Suffolk University poll also reveals that less than one-fourth of Americans think Congress will actually do anything on gun control, while a whopping 68 percent believe it is likely no significant legislation will be passed during the next 12 months.
At the same time, the ABC News/Washington Post survey shows that the public supports a ban on “assault weapons” by a 56-41 percent spread. Additionally, the same survey shows 52 percent back a mandatory “buyback” program “in which the government would require owners to turn in their assault weapons in exchange for payment.”
Some gun owners are calling that “compensated confiscation.”
The USA Today/Suffolk County survey was conducted among 1,000 registered voters via landline and cell phone Aug. 20-25, while Congress was in recess.
The ABC News/Washington Post survey was conducted by landline and cell phone Sept. 2-5 among a “random national sample of 1,003 adults.” This poll was produced by Langer Research Associates and it found some other interesting results.
For example, 58 percent of the respondents “express confidence that stricter gun laws would in fact reduce mass shootings; 41 percent are skeptical.” And six in ten respondents favor banning “high-capacity ammunition clips,” a reference to factory-supplied, original capacity magazines.
The same percentage of people fear a mass shooting in their community, ABC News reported.
Both surveys were released Monday morning.
According to ABC News, its survey shows 89 percent support for “universal background checks for all gun purchases, including private and gun show sales, and 86 percent back ‘red flag’ laws’ allowing the police to take guns from individuals found by a judge to be a danger.”
Meanwhile, according to the USA Today/Suffolk poll, “nine out of 10 registered voters said they support requiring background checks for all firearm sales. The story noted that “most Democratic members of Congress told the USA TODAY Network they support requiring background checks for all firearm sales, as well as federal incentives for states to pass ‘red flag’ laws.”
However, writing for Fox News in mid-August, senior judicial analyst Judge Andrew Napolitano argued that, in his opinion, gun confiscations under “red flag” laws is unconstitutional.
There may be something telling in the ABC/Washington Post survey. According to that report, “Americans trust the Democrats in Congress over Donald Trump to handle gun laws by 51-36 percent.” Perhaps this is one reason Democrats have become known as “the party of gun control.”
By contrast, U.S. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) told USA Today, “The right approach to preventing mass shootings is not restricting the constitutional rights of law-abiding citizens. The right approach is to come down on criminals like a ton of bricks and prevent guns from falling into the wrong hands.”
Thirty-five people were killed in mass shootings in late July and during the month of August. Those high-profile attacks, in California, Ohio and Texas spurred this new gun control push.
But in Baltimore, Maryland over the weekend, seven people were shot including two fatally during a 16-hour period, bringing that city’s body count for the year to 240, according to Fox News.
According to the Chicago Sun-Times, the Windy City has logged 344 slayings so far this year, including two over the weekend.
With those numbers, Capitol Hill anti-gunners are likely to play hardball with their gun control proposals, while describing them publicly as “gun reform measures.”
But according to Langer Research, the firm responsible for the ABC/Washington Post survey, “Support for some gun laws is premised, in large part, on confidence that gun control efforts would have the desired effect. Among those who think such laws would curtail mass shootings, for example, 75 percent support an assault weapons ban. That falls to 28 percent support among those who aren’t confident such laws would work.”
Battle lines are definitely being drawn as 34th annual Gun Rights Policy Conference, sponsored by the Second Amendment Foundation and Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, unfolds Sept. 20-22 in Phoenix. According to WAF’s Alan Gottlieb, pre-registration for this year’ conference has already surpassed previous years. For the second year in a row, the conference will be live-streamed on SAF’s Facebook page.
About Dave Workman
Dave Workman is a senior editor at TheGunMag.com and Liberty Park Press, author of multiple books on the Right to Keep & Bear Arms and formerly an NRA-certified firearms instructor.
Polls, huh? All I can say is I learned a heck of a lot about how little to trust polls in the 2016 election.
Well, I’m just a news hack. Polls are worth whatever they’re worth, and sometimes it just makes interesting reading. I actually participated once in a survey years ago, but not about guns. Haven’t since, and in answer to other questions posted here, I don’t know anybody else who ever was contacted by a pollster, so I don’t have a clue how they are conducted.
In any event, thanks so much for reading and I hope I can write something else one day that’ll get your attention.
@Dave Workman, News What?! Your articles in “American Handgunner” are one of the reasons that I keep subscribing!
News hack! More like entertaining and informative for this gun nut. I miss the weekly newspaper from ccrkba but i read you here and hear you on aar.be well sir!
Very telling. The polls are not accurate. Their reaction in November 2016 was psychotic. Of course, in 2000 they were pretty crazy also. They will be crying again. Which shows how out of touch they are with reality. Sick puppies.
I find it amazing that the polls find so many people who are for gun control yet no one I know has ever been ( officially) poled about anything about guns.
Most of the people I know aren’t for anything that goes against the constitution!
ANYONE WITH A BRAIN and capable of independent thought KNOWS that these polls are ginned up!! They choose the sample group, they craft the questions, they limit the multiple-choice answers to a select range of responses!! IT’S ALL BULL MANURE!!
No public opinion poll, in any event, can ever legitimize their wholly unconstitutional and criminal deprivation of rights under color of law!
They’re gonna do what they’re gonna do. Patriots will not budge one inch, however. Our Rights are NOT negotiable or up for discussion!
That’s exactly what I was inferring. These a-holes think they can piss down our necks and call it rain, and then think we won’t notice they’re full of it. Well they can keep pushing, and I’ll keep re-loading. Eventually they’re gonna have to pay the piper.
@wjd, Hmmm, I doubt that a significant percentage of Americans know why Congress intentionally left so called universal background checks out of the GCA in the first place.
Our lawmakers have through laws established a de facto underclass, prohibited persons. Through background checks we must all prove we are not yet members of this class. Unfortunately, not everyone knows these polls are hyperbole (BS). Our elected presents them to justify their passages of unconstitutional laws. These polls are but one element of the propaganda campaign waged by the anti-american media owners who deny free access to their media.
35 people were killed in mass shootings in July and August; are you kidding? That number is omitting South Chicago, East St. Louis, Baltimore etc. The shootings that AREN’T reported, and you are extremely unlikely to be involved in a shooting unless you live in an inner-city cesspool. The msm is just ginning-up fear in the uninformed.
A hand full of people own 90% of the MSM and suppress the remaining 10%. These are the same handful of people who control most of our nation’s wealth, and we cannot vote them out or use their MSM. These self made elites have long been ginned-up to make Americans uninformed.
These “polls” must be taken in big cities or Dem/lib operated areas/states, probably sanctuary cites. I wonder how many of those that took the poll were actually above ground, not in prison or legal U.S. citizens ?
@Rock, the pollsters are notoriously dishonest, they cook the results according to the customer’s desired outcome.
They tell us that the polls are there to show us what people are thinking. I call total B.S. on that. Polls are there for only one reason – to TELL us what to think. To SHAPE our thinking. People have this nasty tendency to want to do what others are doing. We are social and somewhat communal. We want to be in accord with others. The polls supposedly tell us what others are doing (thinking), ergo, we need to think that, too. And, it works very well. People are guided by news and polls (generally speaking).
Oh I believe everything USA Today and ABC prints and broadcasts, especially the polls they conduct with their inbred, low IQ, brain washed zombie followers.
Polls for supporting high gun control : No one ever asked me. So here it is. NO MORE GUN CONTROL LAWS!!!!. Try enforcing the ones that are already on the books!!! Serve not Rule.
Another great article Dave. Thank you.
I still believe our best argument against the libtarded gun control nuts is very simple: Chicago. If these policies had any effect on gun violence, then why are 300 people murdered every year in such heavily regulated areas like Chicago? Because these laws simply DO NOT WORK, and are clearly NOT aimed at lowering gun violence rates. THIS IS CLEAR evidence that any new gun law is aimed to do nothing but disarm Americans. It does not take much brain power to come to this conclusion.
You have a good argument point! Where it fails is that the anti’s will counter with something like, ” You’re right, that’s because the guns are coming into town from areas where there isn’t any enforcement of gun laws.” We should not allow our selves to be entrapped into a loosing argument! By allowing our selves to fall into this type of debate, we fight on their ground and rules! Make them come to us. Make them justify their position AGAINST THE U. S. CONSTITUTION!! Don’t fight a defensive battle! Fight an AGGRESSOR BATTLE ON OUR TEARMS!! Many of us… Read more »
People don’t think any more. Laws do NOT prevent crime. Law only points out crime once it’s been committed. Criminals are criminals BECAUSE they don’t follow laws. Again, people DON’T think.
There are literal mountains of data and studies showing the abject failure of gun control yet it is always ignored by pandering politicians appealing to emotion driven liberals rather than logical thinkers.
send that statement to your senator
Are these the same polls that had Trump losing? Leftists can’t push their agendas with facts so they lie and deceive. What’s new?
Follow the Constitution, not polls.
Unfortunately that won’t get you elected.
So if the polls show that the american public wants to ban ‘assault rifles’ why are sales, or at least NICS checks, up 15%? Polls are always skewed in the direction the pollster desires by careful wording and selection of the poll takers.
One must read and learn from the Federalist Papers. When the writers of the Bill of Rights discussed the 2nd Amendment, they made it clear in their discussions that the 2nd Amendment was not being put in place to give citizens the right to keep and bear arms. That right is inalienable, God-given. Rather, it was put in place to make it very clear that the Government had no right bestowed upon them to infringe on the inalienable right. James Madison did not want it in the Bill of Rights originally because he had worries that it may lead to… Read more »
Phone rings, I answer. Its a pollster and he asks me about the government shutdown. So I replied that we should shut the government down as half of it was unecessary. He hung up! And that’s how polling works, I mean after DJT had less then 2% chance of winning, but he did.
Polls are kind of like voting – it only counts if it’s the “correct” vote, or opinion. In other words, crazy right-wing conservatives need not apply.
HOW DARE we conservatives demand freedom. The nerve!
I or no one I know has ever been polled. The socialist MSM are just trying to put a feather in their hat by supporting these non American liberals. The problem is that a lot of the working class people hear this BS and take it as accurate but they don’t have the time to look into this information because they are too busy earning a living and raising a family. There is not an honest and accurate news source that reaches all people.
Back during the Bill Clinton era, CNN stated “98% of Americans demand gun bans”.
It came out later that CNN had polled the camera crew in the studio.
NEVER trust a democrat.
The fake polls said Hillary would win!..GOA has turned in over 3 million signatures now to republican law makers, Not one republican voted for more restrictions in the house committees, as domestic enemies have control of the house, they dont necessarily control the Senate
Polls are fake news intended to create an opinion.
Polls are nothing more than a manifestation of the “Ministry of Truth” whose job is to tell us what to think. News media is the same thing: a tool to shape public opinion. When the only thing people read is all about the glowing wonderfulness of an “assault weapons ban” or “red flag laws” or “universal background checks”, of course that’s what they will think is the answer. People think what they are told to think.
The normal citizen does not know the difference between an assault rifle and a candy bar. They read or listen to the talking heads who are also brain dead because they only read what their bosses tell them to say. The big problems for real Americans is the democrats are followers of congressional thieves and the GOP contains so many politicians that are cowards. This country have lost what made us a strong, free and sensible nation. What we have now are a bunch of mentally deficient voters who are to lazy to make decisions based on fact instead of… Read more »
These are the same polls showing Hillary was way ahead until Trump was declared the winner in the last election!
heres another one for ya, a couple of months ago Trump and Biden was in Florida, there was over twenty thousand at Trumps rally, Biden had around two hundred, the polls had Biden by 9 points over Trump
USA Today, ABC, and the Washington Compost have their on axes to grind, assuming they don’t want to ban axes. The number of peopled polled was small, and I am sure the polled people were from areas that are over represent the democrat viewpoint. Plus, the way the questions are presented tend to give the answers that they want. Finally, people are not always honest concerning this issue, especially after back to back mass shootings. With all the hype the poll numbers are jaded. Doesn’t really matter though. My opinion matters concerning my firearms. I could give a rat’s ass… Read more »
It’s the Media floating it. The Media likes to try to control the country.
Gunn, the people who own the media by enlarge are controlling the country.
100,000.000 gun owners in the U.S. Two things essential to retaining our rights: Join and contribute today to the Second Amendment Foundation. They don’t lobby, they sue and usually win. The proposed red flag laws are going to be STATE laws with FEDERAL grants to pay for them. That is intentional to make it harder and more expensive to challenge. Even though as proposed, we’re talking about violating at least three amendments to the Constitution, by not making a single federal red flag law, the resources of those challenging the socialist communist left, will be stretched really thin. Please contribute… Read more »
@Bowser, a two line letter to our Congressional rep, Senators, and the Donald would be good, too!
Just got my response from the senator I wrote to. She pretty much said pound salt I support ‘common sense’ gun laws including the TAPS and suppressor bans.
Well SAF and Citizens don’t seem to be very effective in stopping gun control in their home state. Don’t get me wrong as I’ve been a member on and off over the years.
When you’re outspent 10/20 to 1 by billionaire elitists, and voters essentially get only one side of the argument, it’s tough odds.
Thanks for reading and sharing your thoughts.
That and a ballot harvesting operation that’d make putin blush!
Also, the dims are always citing poll numbers that gun owners and the majority of NRA members support universal background checks and assault weapons bans. Total bullshit. Dims lie every time they open their traps. If they manage to get something through the House, it will be so radical that it wont pass the Senate. In 2020, the republicans will hang the House bills around the dims necks. The dims will own gun control, high taxes, welfare for illegals, socialism, open borders, etc. Hopefully, it will be 1972 (President) and 1994 (Congress) again. The problem with democrats is that they… Read more »
I’ve countered that argument!…Dont be blaming your violence on other towns and city’s, which ever city you think criminals are buying their guns only have a fraction of the crime that Chicago and Baltimore have!..you said, if we ban guns our streets will be safer, we said, if you outlaw guns only outlaws will have them..that wasnt directed at you by the way..
The illegal alien that shot Kate Steinle in the head has been cleared of ALL charges. He had been deported 5 times and had been arrested seven times for felonies. Anti-America activist democrats cleared the murderous scum of ALL charges. Also, he will NOT be deported. Do you remember the illegal alien that raped & murdered the girl in Iowa? He tossed her body in a corn field. He will probably go free on a NOVEL line of defense; It was NOT his fault. There are no white, blonde-hair, blue-eyed girls in South America, so his raping and murdering her… Read more »
The polls only show the general questions like background checks. Just about everyone agrees that background checks are a good idea. But when the nitty gritty of exactly how severe they become, there is much, much less support. These polls basically lie.
Ask President hillary about polls,,,,,
Come get em Nancy scrotum. Sick of it all.