The crime wave is not boding well for President Joe Biden, who recently blamed the rise in violent crime on guns and called for more gun control legislation.
Nearly half of Americans — 48 percent — disapprove of the way Biden is handling crime while only 38 percent approve, according to a Washington Post/ ABC News poll released Friday. Fourteen percent of Americans had no opinion.
As for Biden’s idea to employ “a range of programs” to keep Americans from pulling the trigger, 51 percent of voters would prefer stricter enforcement of current gun laws. Fifty-three percent said stricter gun control laws would not reduce crime, according to the poll.
Instead, 55 percent of Americans think increasing police department funding would reduce crime. At least 75 percent think increasing funding to build economic opportunities in poor communities would help combat crime as well.
The unfavorable polling report coincides with the declining popularity of the “Defund the Police” movement, a surge in violent crime, and the Biden Administration’s attempt to blame the GOP for police department budget cuts.
Many Democrat-run cities have defunded the police in the past year, and prominent Democrat politicians have not been shy in voicing their support for the movement. At the same time, homicides in the U.S. were up 24 percent in the first quarter of 2021 compared to the same period last year.
Biden has denied supporting the “Defund the Police” movement, but backed reallocating police resources during his campaign.
The poll was conducted by telephone June 27-30, 2021, among a random national sample of 907 adults. The results have a margin of error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points.