By Dave Workman
Senior Editor
A new Pew Research Survey has revealed growing support for Second Amendment rights, the first time in two decades that Pew has found this to be the case, with 52 percent of the respondents agreeing that it is “more important to protect the right of Americans to own guns, while 46 percent say it is more important to control gun ownership.”
According to Pew, this is the first time in more than 20 years of Research Center surveys that support for gun rights outweighs support for gun control.
The survey, conducted Dec. 3-7 among 1,507 adults, found that 57 percent of the respondents believe gun ownership is more of a benefit to personal safety than a risk.
Another surprising revelation of this latest Pew survey is that 54 percent of those identified as African-Americans think gun ownership protects people rather than presents a danger. This is almost double the number of black citizens taking that position than in December 2012, when only 29 percent shared that opinion.
But amid the good news, the Pew survey also shows that partisan differences “have widened over the last two years” with more Democrats saying guns put people’s safety at risk. Indeed, the poll found that a whopping 81 percent of the respondents identified as liberal Democrats think it is more important to control gun ownership than protect the rights of gun owners. Among identified Democrats overall, the Pew survey revealed, 69 percent said it was “more important to control gun ownership than to protect the right of Americans to own guns.”
On the other hand, an impressive 83 percent of those identified as conservative Republicans support gun rights protection, and in general, 76 percent of all identified Republicans take that position, Pew reported. Eight in ten Republicans believe guns protect people from crime than pose a risk to their safety, which is up 17 points from 2012.
Pew’s survey said that support for gun rights has climbed seven percentage points since January 2013, from 45 to 52 percent, while support for gun control has declined from 51 to 46 percent.
This is particularly interesting to Second Amendment activists, considering that gun control proponents, including anti-gun billionaire Michael Bloomberg, have spent small fortunes over the past 22 months to push their political agenda. Bloomberg financed Everytown for Gun Safety and Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America with $50 million. Millions more has reportedly been raised by Americans for Responsible Solutions, the group launched by former Arizona Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords and her husband, Mark Kelly.
Following the December 2012 tragedy at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Conn., gun control advocates launched a wave of legislation at the national level and in some states. At the time, there was stronger support for tougher gun laws, but that has waned considerably as more Americans have understood that the various anti-gun proposals would not have prevented that crime, had they been in effect at the time.
