Skip to footer

Gun control: Public support is waning, poll finds

Even as Congress prepares to vote on gun control legislation, public support for stricter gun laws has fallen from 57 percent after the Newtown massacre to 47 percent in a new poll.

|
Cliff Owen / AP / File
Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) of Nevada addresses reporters at a news conference on Capitol Hill in Washington, March 14. Senator Reid has said he removed an assault weapons ban from a wider gun bill because he determined it would not garner the votes needed to pass.restrictions.

As Congress prepares to vote on a comprehensive gun control bill next month, a poll released Tuesday shows that public support is waning for restrictions on gun ownership.

According to a CBS News poll, less than half the public (47 percent) now supports stricter gun control laws, compared with 57 percent in late December following the mass shooting at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn.

Those who say they want less strict gun regulation (10 percent) has hardly wavered in that time period, although those who want current gun laws kept as they are has increased four percentage points, from 30 to 34 percent.

The poll of 1,181 adults across the country was conducted March 20-24 and has a sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

The Newtown massacre, which left 20 children and six adults dead, ignited a national debate over harsher restrictions on guns, particularly assault weapons. However Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D) of Nevada announced this month he was excluding an assault weapons ban from a wider gun bill because he determined it would not garner the votes needed to pass.

“I’m not going to try to put something on the floor that won’t succeed. I want something that will succeed. The worst thing in the world would be to bring something to the floor and it dies there,” Senator Reid said. By his estimation, the legislation had support from fewer than 40 senators. At least 60 votes are needed for passage.

President Obama is calling for a vote on the ban as a symbolic measure. White House Deputy Press Secretary Josh Earnest told reporters Tuesday it “will be a question for all 100 members of the Senate to ask themselves about whether or not they think that voting for and supporting an assault weapons ban would actually do something to reduce gun violence in communities all across the country.… We’re going to have that debate.”

The current gun control legislation will include a proposal for universal background checks and provisions to eliminate straw purchases of guns. The vote could come as early as April 8 when the Senate returns to session.

Perhaps serving as an indicator for how the Senate will vote, the current CBS poll shows that well over half of Democrats (66 percent) favor stricter gun control laws, joined by only one-third of Republicans (29 percent) and 43 percent of independents. In February, 78 percent of Democrats supported harsher gun laws. 

You've read  of  free articles. Subscribe to continue.
Real news can be honest, hopeful, credible, constructive.
What is the Monitor difference? Tackling the tough headlines – with humanity. Listening to sources – with respect. Seeing the story that others are missing by reporting what so often gets overlooked: the values that connect us. That’s Monitor reporting – news that changes how you see the world.
editor@csmonitor.com
Subscribe
Mark Sappenfield
Editor

Dear Reader,

About a year ago, I happened upon this statement about the Monitor in the Harvard Business Review – under the charming heading of “do things that don’t interest you”:

“Many things that end up” being meaningful, writes social scientist Joseph Grenny, “have come from conference workshops, articles, or online videos that began as a chore and ended with an insight. My work in Kenya, for example, was heavily influenced by a Christian Science Monitor article I had forced myself to read 10 years earlier. Sometimes, we call things ‘boring’ simply because they lie outside the box we are currently in.”

If you were to come up with a punchline to a joke about the Monitor, that would probably be it. We’re seen as being global, fair, insightful, and perhaps a bit too earnest. We’re the bran muffin of journalism.

But you know what? We change lives. And I’m going to argue that we change lives precisely because we force open that too-small box that most human beings think they live in.

The Monitor is a peculiar little publication that’s hard for the world to figure out. We’re run by a church, but we’re not only for church members and we’re not about converting people. We’re known as being fair even as the world becomes as polarized as at any time since the newspaper’s founding in 1908.

We have a mission beyond circulation, we want to bridge divides. We’re about kicking down the door of thought everywhere and saying, “You are bigger and more capable than you realize. And we can prove it.”

If you’re looking for bran muffin journalism, you can subscribe to the Monitor for $15. You’ll get the Monitor Weekly magazine, the Monitor Daily email, and unlimited access to CSMonitor.com.

Subscribe to insightful journalism

QR Code to Gun control: Public support is waning, poll finds
Read this article in
https://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2013/0326/Gun-control-Public-support-is-waning-poll-finds
QR Code to Subscription page
Start your subscription today
https://www.csmonitor.com/subscribe