Poll: Majority Thinks Murders Drop if Guns Harder to Get 'Legally'

A UChicago Harris / AP-NORC poll released Tuesday shows the majority of adults believe murders would drop if it were more difficult “to legally obtain” firearms.

The poll was conducted July 28 to August 1 with 1,373 adults and has a margin of error of +/- 3.8 percentage points.

Responses show that 42 percent of the respondents were gun owners while the majority, 56 percent, were not.

Interviewers asked, “If it were harder for people to legally obtain guns in the United States, do you think there would be fewer or more of each of the following or wouldn’t it make much of a difference?”

In the category of “murders,” 57 percent of respondents expressed a belief that there would be “many or somewhat fewer” if guns were harder “to legally obtain.”

Seven percent of respondents said murders would rise if guns were more difficult to acquire legally.

On January 2, 2022, Breitbart News noted that 2021 proved to be the deadliest year in a quarter of a century in Chicago. The Hill pointed out that Chicago police confirmed the city witnessed 797 homicides during the course of 2021 and the AP noted the 797 homicides represented “25 more than were recorded [in] 2020, 299 more than in 2019 and the most since 1996.”

The high-water mark for murders in the 1990s is important because that was a decade in which handguns were much harder to obtain legally in Chicago. In fact, handguns were banned.

Breitbart News reported that the handgun ban was in effect from 1982 to 2010, and the Chicago Police Department shows there were 930 homicides in 1994; 921 homicides in 1991; and a startling 940 homicides in 1992. That means there were many more homicides in 1991, 1992, and 1994, when handguns could not be legally obtained, than in 2021, when handguns could be legally obtained.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. Reach him at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.