A Pew Research Center survey released August 26 shows majority support for protecting the right to gun ownership versus passing more laws to control who can own a gun.
According to Pew, 52% of the public want to “protect the right of Americans to own guns” while 46% support passing more laws “to control gun ownership.” The gap between the two positions was even larger when the question was posed to Donald Trump supporters, who chose gun ownership instead of controlling gun ownership roughly “nine-to-one.” On the other hand, when Clinton supporters were asked the question they responded in favor of more gun control by a “more than four-to-one” margin.
Viewed head-to-head it means “79% of Clinton supporters” believe gun control most important while only “9% of Trump supporters” do.
The poll also shows the majority of Americans–58%–believe gun ownership “does more to protect people from crime than to put people’s safety at risk.” Only 37% of respondents believed “gun ownership does more to endanger personal safety.” With Trump supporters the margin was 89% to 9%, favoring the view that “guns protect people from crime,” while Clinton supporters believed “gun ownership does more to endanger personal safety” by a margin of approximately two-to-one.
Pew found overall support for an “assault weapons” ban has fallen from 57% in July 2015 to 52% now. Their survey showed that continued support for such a ban is much stronger among gun-free households than gun-owning households and the divide is even greater when contrasting Democrat households with Republican. Sixty-seven percent of Democrat households support an “assault weapons” ban versus only 35% of Republican households.
AWR Hawkins is the Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.