The numbers from a new Quinnipiac University poll make it clear that we’re not going to get what needs to be done to protect ourselves from gun violence.
The people at Quinnipiac highlighted in their PR on the poll that Americans support “stricter gun laws” by a 57 percent to 38 percent majority, but diving deeper into the poll results, it’s clear that we really don’t support stricter gun laws.
OK, so, yeah, we back, by a 74 percent to 24 percent majority, raising the minimum legal age to buy any gun to 21.
Even 59 percent of Republicans agree on that.
Ninety-two percent of us support requiring background checks for all gun buyers, and 83 percent favor “red flag” laws allowing police or family members to petition a judge to remove guns from a person that may be at risk for violent behavior.
Here’s where things fall off the rails: only half of us support a nationwide ban on assault weapons, the lowest level of support for a nationwide ban on the sale of assault weapons since February 2013, when the question was first asked by the Quinnipiac University Poll.
For reference, the highest level of support for a nationwide ban on the sale of assault weapons was in a Quinnipiac poll on Feb. 20, 2018 when 67 percent supported a ban and 29 percent opposed.
And then, this: 41 percent of Americans think the United States should pursue limiting the number of guns in the country, but 55 percent do not think so.
So, we pretend to support “stricter gun laws,” but all we’re willing to do to get there is raise the age you have to be to buy a gun by three years, require background checks and petition a judge to get guns out of hands of potentially violent people.
None of which does much of anything that you could call substantive.
It’s not exactly American exceptionalism at play that we lap the rest of the developed world in gun-related murders – more than twice as many as Chile, which comes in second, more than eight times the rate in Canada, in third, more than 100 times the rate in the UK.
And all we’re willing to do to address this public health crisis is … nothing.
Back to Quinnipiac to conclude. The poll tells us that 43 percent of us worry about being the victim of a mass shooting.
This will come across as crass, but it’s also true – that if you are, it’s your own fault.
Story by Chris Graham
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Chris Graham
