This election season, bloggers took political communication to
another dimension by making political opinions of every persuasion
omnipresent on the Web. Flattering and unflattering names for those
on both sides of the political spectrum, previously reserved for
private conversation, became public on political blog sites. For
example, some bloggers typecast conservatives as "gun-toting
churchgoers," most using the description pejoratively, but some
bearing the badge with honor. Is there truth behind the label?
It is true that those who attend church regularly tend to be
conservative, as do those who own guns. And people who fit both
descriptions voted overwhelmingly for George W. Bush this year's
presidential election. But an analysis of recent Gallup data shows
that churchgoing and gun ownership do not necessarily go together
in America.
The analysis relied on data from the last three Gallup Crime
polls, conducted in October of each year. The data show that
American churchgoers are no more likely to own guns than those who
rarely or never darken a chapel door. About 4 in 10 people in both
groups say they have a gun in the house.
Laws Covering Sale of Firearms
Weekly churchgoers and non-churchgoers are not in dispute over
their attitudes toward gun laws, either. Similar majorities of both
groups (53% of weekly churchgoers, 54% of non-churchgoers) agree
that the laws covering the sale of firearms should be made
stricter. About 1 in 10 say that the laws should be made less
strict, and approximately a third of each group say the laws should
be kept just as they are now. Americans who attend church on a
regular basis, but less frequently than every week, also agree with
their weekly attending and non-attending counterparts about gun
laws.
Ban Handguns?
Handguns are not commonly thought of as hunting weapons. They
are more often associated with crime, and in that capacity are
often kept in the house for self-defense against criminal activity.
Even though handguns tend to be more politically controversial than
traditional hunting rifles, people who seldom or never attend
religious services agree with weekly churchgoers that there should
be no law to ban the possession of handguns. Sixty-five percent of
people in both groups say there should not be a law banning
handguns. About a third of churchgoers (33%) and non-churchgoers
(34%) disagree with that premise.
Bottom Line
It is true that in American politics people associate certain
behaviors with people of different political persuasions. While
there often is some truth to stereotypes (those who attend church
and those who own guns tend to be more conservative), the idea that
there is a nexus of cultural conservatism that makes churchgoing
Americans more apt to own guns doesn't pan out. But that probably
won't stop self-proclaimed pundits from using the term again to
oversimplify a chunk of the electorate, along with "tree-hugging
Volvo drivers," "flag-waving, pick-up-driving good ole' boys," and
the ever-popular "blue-state, wine-drinking, academic elitist."
*Results are based on aggregated data from telephone surveys
with 3,033 adults, 18 and older, conducted between Oct. 14, 2002
and Oct. 14, 2004. For results based on the total sample of
national adults, one can say with 95% confidence that the margin of
sampling error is ±2 percentage points.
Actual dates of surveys: Oct. 14-17, 2002; Oct. 6-8, 2003; Oct.
11-14, 2004.
The margin of error for the 920 weekly churchgoers is
±4 percentage points; the margin of error for the 711 nearly
weekly/monthly churchgoers is ±4 percentage points; the
margin of error for the 1,374 who seldom or never attend church is
±3 percentage points.
