The Pew Research Center released a poll today that found Americans support gun control over gun rights, 49 percent to 42 percent. A shift in favor of gun control would be expected after last week’s horrific shooting in Newtown. But Politico is reporting on this as if it’s a major attitude change:
More Americans prioritize gun control above Second Amendment rights by the widest margin since President Barack Obama took office, according to a new poll released Thursday in wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary School shootings.
Forty-nine percent of those polled said it’s more important to control gun ownership, compared to 42 percent who say it’s more important to protect Americans’ rights to own guns, according to a Pew Research Center Poll.
The Pew poll showed a slight shift toward gun control that wasn’t apparent following a July shooting at an Aurora, Colo., movie theater. Following that shooting, 47 percent thought it was more important to control gun ownership and 46 percent said it was more important to protect gun rights, according to Pew, within the poll’s margin of error.
That seven-point gap isn’t particularly significant. Support for gun rights is still much higher than its been at almost any point in the past 20 years, and support for gun control is much lower. In the same Pew poll in 2007, Americans favored gun control above gun rights by 28 points. In 2000, the gap was 37 percent, and in 1993, it was 23 percent.
According to Pew’s data, mass shootings don’t tend to impact public opinion very much, if at all. The poll found little change after the Virginia Tech massacre in 2007. The Tucson shooting in 2011 and the Aurora shooting this year had no discernible impact. After Aurora, support for gun control vs. gun rights was split, 47 percent to 46.
Maybe public opinion is still shifting, and Obama will be able to rally enough popular support to push through stricter gun control laws. But this poll certainly doesn’t show he gained a mandate on gun policy.
The Second Amendment begins with the words, “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State…” In what way does the right of individuals to bear arms have anything to do with a militia, or with its being well regulated? The Second Amendment must have meant something in 1791, when it was passed, but today it is gibberish. n nNew York City has the lowest crime rate of all the major cities in the United States. One of the reasons is that New York State has strict gun-control laws
There were no semicolons back then. Put a semicolon instead of a comma at the end of the part you have quoted and note how the meaning is vastly different. And that is what was intended. n n nNew York had pretty much the same strict gun control laws in the 1970s and do you have any idea what Times Square used to be like? It was something other than strict gun laws that cleaned up that city….
George, that's simply a failure to understand the what " a militia" meant at the time the Second Am was drawn up. n nIt has everything to do with the right of the individual to bear arms for purpose of self and common defense.
If you add a semicolon, you make the first clause a fragment. It remains gibberish. n nCrime was worse everywhere in the 1970s, but New York City was still low compared to other places.
No, it is not gibberish, not unless you consider the preamble to the constitution to be gibberish too. Maybe you do…. n nOh and no, you are not right about NYC being safer than other places in the 1970s. I'm not so sure you are now — but lets take Chicago which has stricter gun laws than NYC does, and had a really REALLY bloody summer. Now why would that happen?
It's funny how the liberals are promoting Chicago's tough gun laws where only the criminals are armed and the populace lives in fear in the big cites, because they can't defend themselves.
George, violent crime in NYC in the early 1970s was low and trended upward for the latter part of the decade and continued upward through the 80s. n n n
My personal favorite was at Appalachian State University where — like at Virginia Tech, the perp had killed a couple people and was going to go for more, but it was deer season and a couple students had their deer rifles in the trunks of their cars, went and got them and merely pointed them at the perp which was enough to slow him down long enough for a third to tackle him, they didn't even have to shoot him. Or the off-duty police officer bringing his daughter to school when someone started shooting and he shot the perp before anyone else got hurt. (Hopefully someone explained to the little girll that "Daddy did the right thing.") n nOr even the Gabby Gifford shooting where a woman who was familiar with weapons but didn't have one was able to use her knowledge of guns to disable the perp's gun — memory is that she jammed a pencil in somewhere so as to either preclude him loading a new clip or chambering the first round off of it. All she had was a pencil and her knowledge of guns, and she saved a lot of lives including likely her own.