https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2015/12/03/what-gun-control-
advocates-misunderstand-about-gun-
owners/?tid=pm_business_pop_b&utm_term=.9841080c8150
Soon after news broke on Wednesday that a gunman had opened fire on a
social service center in San Bernardino, Calif., killing 14 people and
wounding 17 others, the liberal Daily Kos website published an opinion
piece under the headline "Your opinion on gun control doesn't matter." It
crystallized much of the anger and frustration that gun-control advocates
were expressing on social media in the wake of another American mass
shooting.
"If you still bristle at the idea of gun control, fine," declared the
author, Josie Duffy, an attorney who writes on criminal justice issues for
the site. "All I'm asking is that you call a spade a spade. To you, the
right to own a gun— including one of those assault weapons that looks like
what a robot might utilize to kill the enemy in a movie called Robot War
3—is more important than people’s lives. People’s lives matter less than
your gun."
[We’ve had a massive decline in gun violence in the United States. Here’s
why.]
This is a common - and increasingly exasperated - refrain from gun-control
advocates. They see passing stricter gun laws as a common-sense response
to keep deadly weapons out of the hands of criminals and the mentally ill,
and they bristle at those who disagree.
Public polling suggests many of those advocates don't fully understand the
motivations of their opponents: Supporting gun rights, for a large portion
of Americans, is about much more than guns.
It's important to note that some tighter gun-control measures enjoy wide
support across America, among liberals and conservatives, gun owners and
even National Rifle Association-households as well as those who have never
pulled a trigger. More than 4 in 5 Americans support requiring background
checks for private and gun-show firearms sales, and nearly as many favor
laws preventing people with mental illness from owning guns, Pew Research
surveys have found. Seven in 10 support a federal database of gun sales.
Over half support bans on semi-automatic and assault weapons.
More broadly, though, defending gun rights is a more popular position now
than it has been in almost 20 years. Half of Americans now says it is more
important to "protect the right of Americans to own guns" than it is to
"control gun ownership."
Several forces are shaping that growing support. They include:
1. A backlash against government intrusion in individuals' lives.
This connection was borne out clearly in a large 2012 survey by the
Washington Post and Kaiser Family Foundation. Respondents were asked
whether they support stricter gun control laws as well as whether they
agreed with the statement “government controls too much of our daily
lives.”
The correlation was stark – among those who strongly agreed government had
too much control, 70 percent opposed stricter gun control laws. That
opposition dropped to 45 percent among those who only “somewhat agreed”
government had too much control and only 24 percent among those who
strongly disagreed government was too controlling.
Complaints of government control and gun law opposition
Opposition to stricter gun control laws among those who agree/disagree
that "Government controls too much of our daily lives"
0204060
Strongly disagree24% oppose stricter gun laws
Somewhat disagree29%Somewhat agree45%
Strongly agree70% oppose
Source:
Aug. 2012 Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll of U.S. adults
THE WASHINGTON POST
That connection isn't simply an artifact of partisanship or ideology --
even among Republicans (more on partisanship in a minute) and Republican-
leaning independents, those who "strongly agreed" government is too
controlling were 30 percentage points more likely to oppose new gun
restrictions if they agreed with the "government controls too much"
statement than if they disagreed.
Among Republicans alone, government and gun attitudes still connected
Opposition to stricter gun control laws among those who agree/disagree
that "Government controls too much of our daily lives" (Results in this
chart among Republicans and Republican-leaning independents)
Total Republican-leaning70% oppose
Strongly agree81%
All others51%
Source: Aug. 2012 Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation poll of U.S.
adults
THE WASHINGTON POST
Worries about gun laws breeding government intrusion aren't confined to
gun owners, by the way. A 2013 Pew poll found that 57 percent of all
adults -- and 49 percent of adults who have no guns in their household --
"agree" that stricter gun laws would give "too much power to government
over average citizens." While agree-disagree survey questions can inflate
support for an idea, the result suggests this argument is broadly
acceptable.
https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2015/12/PewGuns.png
2. A belief that more guns make us safer.
Americans doubt the effectiveness of gun laws, with 60 percent in a June
CNN/ORC poll saying they stricter gun control laws would not reduce the
number gun-related deaths.
Guns themselves are also seen doing as much to protect people as put their
safety at risk, with 54 percent in the previously mentioned Pew survey
this summer saying they do more to protect people from becoming victims.
That sentiment has increased in the years following the deadly 2012
shootings in Newtown, Conn.
3. The rise of gun laws as a partisan issue.
From 1993 through 2007, Pew documented a steady gap between Republicans
and Democrats on the importance of gun rights versus gun control.
Republicans tended to split about 50-50, and Democrats tended to break
two-thirds in favor of gun control. That trend broke, and broke hard,
after Barack Obama was elected president.
Since 2008, Republican preference for protecting gun rights has risen to
75 percent. Democratic preferences have stayed basically level. The surge
in support for gun rights in recent years, in other words, is entirely
explained by the changing views of Republicans. In a statistical
regression analysis predicting opposition to gun-control measures in the
2012 Post-Kaiser poll, gun ownership, partisanship and ideology emerge as
the best predictors.
https://img.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/files/2015/12/PewGuns2.png
"Can we stop looking at gun rights as an ideological issue?" Duffy asks,
in the first line of her Daily Kos piece. "This is no longer ideological."
Polls are telling us that it is.