Gallup Crime and Gun Ownership Poll: Good news for gun owners

[irishScott]

http://www.gallup.com/poll/150341/Record-Low-Favor-Handgun-Ban.aspx

A record-low 26% of Americans favor a legal ban on the possession of handguns in the United States other than by police and other authorized people. When Gallup first asked Americans this question in 1959, 60% favored banning handguns. But since 1975, the majority of Americans have opposed such a measure, with opposition around 70% in recent years.

For the first time, Gallup finds greater opposition to than support for a ban on semiautomatic guns or assault rifles, 53% to 43%. In the initial asking of this question in 1996, the numbers were nearly reversed, with 57% for and 42% against an assault rifle ban. Congress passed such a ban in 1994, but the law expired when Congress did not act to renew it in 2004. Around the time the law expired, Americans were about evenly divided in their views.

Additionally, support for the broader concept of making gun laws "more strict" is at its lowest by one percentage point (43%). Forty-four percent prefer that gun laws be kept as they are now, while 11% favor less strict laws.

Americans' preference regarding gun laws is generally that the government enforce existing laws more strictly and not pass new laws (60%) rather than pass new gun laws in addition to stricter enforcement of existing laws (35%). That has been the public's view since Gallup first asked the question in 2000; the 60% this year who want stricter enforcement but no new laws is tied for the high in the trend.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/150353/Self-Reported-Gun-Ownership-Highest-1993.aspx

PRINCETON, NJ -- Forty-seven percent of American adults currently report that they have a gun in their home or elsewhere on their property. This is up from 41% a year ago and is the highest Gallup has recorded since 1993, albeit marginally above the 44% and 45% highs seen during that period.

 

[Double Trouble]

Makes perfect sense. Violent crime rates are dropping around the country at the same time as gun ownership, concealed carry etc is increasing. I'm not going to assume the drop can be specifically attributed to increased gun ownership, but at the very least it's become very clear that the predictions of those saying city streets would become like the wild west and all that nonsense were wrong.

I don't own any weapons myself, but I'm against any laws further restricting legal gun ownership. Criminals already have guns, normal people should be able to own them as well if they so choose.

This is obviously bad news for the gun grabbers, it shows the public simply isn't buying into their message.

 

[a777pilot]

I remember seeing a national News program on the destruction caused by Hurricane Andrew in 1992. At the end of the news report from south Florida the reporter had his cameraman pan the destruction and the citizens trying to clean up. He said, "It's a good thing there is no looting because most of these people are armed." They showed a number of those working with side arms on as they worked.

Now that's just too funny.

Some one needed to explain cause and effect to that obvious biased reporter.

 

[umbrella39]

Good news for gun owners...

Not sure where the good news is? I own several and have never had any concerns someone was actually going to come take them away from me. More people owning guns doesn't make me feel any more or less concerned with my 2nd amendment rights being infringed, it won't ever happen. Not that paranoid...

What the increase in ownership does or doesn't show is very much up for debate. IMO more people feel they need protection than ever. In addition I highly doubt the drop in violent crime has one thing to do with gun ownership.

 

[Double Trouble]

Good news for gun owners...

Not sure where the good news is? I own several and have never had any concerns someone was actually going to come take them away from me.

Nobody is going to come overnight and take them away from you, but if the population starts getting more comfortable with restrictions on gun ownership, legislators all over the place would keep chipping away at your rights until eventually you'd have none. With the public sentiment going the other way, there's more assurance that your right to have and own firearms won't go away.

 

[irishScott]

Nobody is going to come overnight and take them away from you, but if the population starts getting more comfortable with restrictions on gun ownership, legislators all over the place would keep chipping away at your rights until eventually you'd have none. With the public sentiment going the other way, there's more assurance that your right to have and own firearms won't go away.

This. Plus it's nice to know that the gun control advocates I argue with (on this forum and elsewhere) are in a currently shrinking minority in many ways, and an extreme minority in some ways.

In any case, just look at McDonald and Heller, both 5-4 decision in favor of a private right to bear arms. That's slim, very slim. Plus California just banned open carry, although the true results of that remain to be seen given the litigation it's spawning.

So like Double Trouble said, no one's coming to take my guns tomorrow; but I'm going to be alive for at least a few more decades. Gotta play the long game, and the longer these trends hold the better.

 

[schneiderguy]

Plus California just banned open carry, although the true results of that remain to be seen given the litigation it's spawning.

We sicced Alan Gura on them, you know the guy that won Heller and Mcdonald :thumbsup:

As Defendants see it, “[t]he real
issue is whether California can constitutionally restrict open carrying
of loaded guns in certain public areas of cities.” Id. at 46. The bulk of
Defendants’ brief thus argues that Second Amendment interests are
adequately protected by the carrying of unloaded handguns, id. at 25-
31, and that it is appropriate to regulate the right to bear arms by
prohibiting handguns openly-carried in urban areas from being loaded.
Id. at 31-46. Defendants’ amici tread the same ground.
The lower court adopted this logic. Because Plaintiffs “[were] still
more than free to keep an unloaded weapon nearby their person, load
it, and use it for self-defense in circumstances that may occur in a
public setting,” ER 11, the lower court found that the handgun carry
licensing scheme did not substantially burden Second Amendment
rights, and applied rational basis to uphold the law. Id.
Alas, on October 9, 2011, California’s Governor signed into law
Assembly Bill 144, criminalizing the unloaded open carrying of
handguns in any incorporated portion of the state, or in any
unincorporated area in which shooting is forbidden. Thus, Plaintiffs
need not respond to the argument that openly carrying unloaded
handguns is anything other than an invitation to robbery. Whatever its
legal significance last month, that option is off the table effective
January 1, 2012, and with it, the crux of Defendants’ position as well as
the rationale articulated by the court below.
The opposition’s remaining arguments do not require much
response. The Second Amendment right to carry handguns for self-
defense is secured, like all others, by the federal courts’ traditional
prior restraint doctrine. The right applies throughout the state,
including urban areas, and does not evaporate for all because it might
be denied to some. Even to the limited extent the case is governed by
means-ends scrutiny, required only to resolve Plaintiffs’ Equal
Protection claim, such balancing cannot sanction the court substituting 5
its own policy choice for one the people ratified as constitutional text.
In any event, with enactment of Assembly Bill 144, the statutory
landscape underpinning the lower court and Defendants’ views have
been repealed. Nothing remains for the Court to do but remand with
instructions to grant Plaintiffs’ motion for summary judgment. See, e.g.
Parker v. District of Columbia, 478 F.3d 370, 401 (D.C. Cir. 2007), aff’d
sub nom District of Columbia v. Heller, 554 U.S. 570 (2008).

 

[Texashiker]

I wonder if the recent polls are related to people serving in the military?

After 9/11 the number of people enrolling in the military surged. Those people were exposed to weapons, served in the military and have returned home.

After serving in the military, the people realized weapons are not the evil things the news says they are.

 

[xBiffx]

Good news for gun owners...

Not sure where the good news is? I own several and have never had any concerns someone was actually going to come take them away from me. More people owning guns doesn't make me feel any more or less concerned with my 2nd amendment rights being infringed, it won't ever happen. Not that paranoid...

What the increase in ownership does or doesn't show is very much up for debate. IMO more people feel they need protection than ever. In addition I highly doubt the drop in violent crime has one thing to do with gun ownership.

Incrementalism will be the death of this country, and your rights. Like the frog boiling to death in the pot of water, when will you realize you are getting cooked before its too late to jump out?

 

[schneiderguy]

I wonder if the recent polls are related to people serving in the military?

After 9/11 the number of people enrolling in the military surged. Those people were exposed to weapons, served in the military and have returned home.

After serving in the military, the people realized weapons are not the evil things the news says they are.

I bet it's the popularity of first person shooters more than anything. All of the 13 year old CoD players want to own an AK-74u (derp) submachinegun (derp) with banana clips (derp). At least they think guns are cool, even if the "information" about guns in games like that is terribly inaccurate.