When it comes to gun legislation issues, there's no question
where gun rights groups, such as the National Rifle Association,
and gun control advocates, such as the Brady Campaign, stand. But
what about the American people? Gallup's October 2004 crime survey*
addresses several key gun-related issues; the results portray a
populace that has become more hesitant in recent years to say gun
laws should be made more strict.
According to the October survey, conducted after the publicized
September expiration of a 10-year ban on assault rifles, slightly
more than half of Americans (54%) say laws covering the sale of
firearms should be made more strict, while 11% say the laws should
be less strict, and a third (34%) say they should be kept as they
are now. Opinion is essentially the same as it was in the last two
Gallup crime polls.
The most recent results are part of a larger pattern that
suggests the public is becoming less willing to say that gun laws
should be made stricter. Between 1990 and 1993, an average of 71%
of Americans said laws regulating firearms should be stricter.
After Congress passed two major gun laws, the Brady Bill on
handguns in late 1993 and an assault rifle ban in 1994, support for
stricter gun laws dropped to 62% in 1995. Average results from six
surveys Gallup conducted in 1999 -- the year of the Columbine High
School shootings -- showed that 63% of Americans thought gun laws
should be made stricter that year.
Other recent Gallup data show that more Americans advocate a
more strict enforcement of existing gun laws as opposed to passing
new gun laws.
Women, Nonwhites, Liberals Support Stricter
Laws
Some Americans are more inclined than others to say the laws
covering firearm sales should be stricter. Women are much more
likely than men to want stricter gun laws (65% to 42%) and
nonwhites are slightly more likely than whites to desire stricter
laws (62% to 52%). Conservatives tend to be more pro-gun rights
than are liberals or moderates. Seven in 10 liberals (70%) think
the laws should be stricter, compared with just 41% of
conservatives. Conservatives are also more likely than liberals or
moderates to own guns (see "Praise the Lord and Pass the
Ammunition" in Related Items).
Opinion on gun laws also tends to vary by type of community.
People living in rural areas -- where hunting is more prevalent --
are less likely than those living in suburban and urban
neighborhoods to think gun laws should be stricter. Just 44% of
rural dwellers think so, compared with 56% of suburbanites and 59%
of urban dwellers.
Handguns and Automatic Weapons
Handguns, which are more strongly associated with crime than
other guns, tend to be sticking points in debates about gun laws.
But Americans still do not give wholehearted -- or even majority --
approval to bans on this weapon. About a third (36%) of Americans
think there should be a ban on the possession of handguns, except
by police or authorized persons; 63% think there should not be a
ban. The percentage saying there should be a ban on handguns has
not broken the 40% threshold since December 1993. Support was 60%
when first asked in 1959, and above 40% in the 1960s and 1970s.
Gallup also asks Americans whether they are for or against a law
that would make it illegal to manufacture, sell, or possess
semi-automatic guns known as assault rifles. Currently, Americans
are almost evenly divided on this question, with 50% supporting
such a law and 46% opposing it.
*These results are based on telephone interviews
with a randomly selected national sample of 1,012 adults, aged 18
and older, conducted Oct. 11-14, 2004. For results based on this
sample, one can say with 95% confidence that the maximum error
attributable to sampling and other random effects is ±3
percentage points. In addition to sampling error, question wording
and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce
error or bias into the findings of public opinion polls.
