By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
A new Gallup survey confirms what the firearms community essentially already knew: public support for banning handguns is near the all-time low, and Democrats support stricter gun control more than any other group.
According to Gallup, “89% of Democrats supporting stricter gun laws compared with 56% of independents and 25% of Republicans.”
There may be no other evidence necessary to reinforce the public belief that Democrats have become the “party of gun control/prohibition.” Republicans, meanwhile, still more strongly align with the Second Amendment. The poll revealed a majority (59%) of Republicans “favor keeping firearms sales laws as they are now” while 15 percent would like them rolled back.
The Daily Caller is reporting that support for a ban on so-called “assault weapons” has declined 9 points since 2019, although a “slim majority” still supports stronger gun control laws (56%) while 33 percent favor leaving gun laws as they are now.
Gallup notes in its report that the “decline in support for a handgun ban this year is largely owed to Democrats, whose backing has fallen by 16 points since 2023 to 33% — a new low — after the group showed increasing support for a ban the prior two years.”
Something the Daily Caller noted may have had a bearing on how the election turned out. According to the report, 59% of Vice President Kamala Harris supporters said gun control was a “very important” issue, according to a September Pew Research poll.
Still, according to the Gallup poll, a majority of Americans (56%) still favor adopting stricter laws for gun sales, which has held steady for the past three years. However, the number has fallen over the past 35 years, from the 78 percent reported in 1990.
As noted by Gallup, “Since then, calls for tougher gun control have generally spiked in the wake of prominent mass shootings and fallen as the media coverage of each has faded. The most recent example of this was in the aftermath of the May 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that claimed the lives of 21 people. In the month after the attack, support for stricter gun laws jumped to 66%. Yet, by October 2022, the reading had fallen to 57%, about the level where it has remained since.”
Gallup also acknowledged, “Support for banning the ownership of handguns by unauthorized people peaked at 60% in 1959, the initial reading. Since then, support has never risen to the majority level and has been consistently below 30% since 2008, including the current near-record low.”
Support for gun control laws seems to rise and fall, depending upon the headline news. Mass shootings invariably raise support for tougher gun restrictions, but reports of rising crime coupled with reduced police manpower, or civil unrest and outright rioting seem to bring lots of new business to gun shops. It’s when the latter occurs one finds considerable surprise, and even shock and frustration when first-time gun buyers discover it is not so easy to purchase firearms as the media and gun control lobby have claimed over the years. There really is not so much “ease to acquire firearms” unless it is done illicitly.
