Interesting Pew Research Poll on RKBA

[Bartholomew Roberts]

http://www.people-press.org/2012/07/30/views-on-gun-laws-unchanged-after-aurora-shooting/

The poll basically shows that public views on this tend to change very little after mass shootings, and what change there is does not always favor gun control. In the most recent poll, it shows support for protecting gun rights declined 3% (within the sampling error margin) after Aurora.

More interesting was the long term trend line which shows that gun control was the majority position as recently as 2007; but that public support for gun control has been trending steadily downward overall since around 1997. Further, support for gun control hasn't been above 50% since 2008...

 

[IdahoSkies]

What is doubly interesting is that there is very little middle ground. (Or the questions did not allow for a "i don't care about guns or gun control" question). You are either for gun control, or for the right to own firearms.

 

[CoRoMo]

What is doubly interesting is that there is very little middle ground.

When I saw this article on Tuesday, I tried to get an idea of how they posed the question(s), and I think the article gives a few clues. I could only deduce that they asked the survey question this way...

On which issue do you place as a higher priority: 'Controlling gun ownership', 'protecting the right of gun ownership', or 'don't know'?

So everyone was given the 3rd option. Many, many people COULD HAVE answered 'don't know', but they didn't. Only 71 individuals of the 1,010 adults polled chose 'don't know'.

I read this to state that there are probably about 45% of Americans who are in favor of gun control and just a slightly higher percentage are not only opposed to gun control, but that majority is informed to the point that they prioritize the protection of the rights of Americans to own guns. There is a definitive difference between the former and the later. Some people can lack any interest in gun control and also lack interest in protecting the 2A rights, but this poll states that a slight majority values the protection of those rights. The less-than 10% third category is either undecided or wavering back and forth between the two larger positions. It is that 6%-7% of people who tilted this poll... but only periodically IMO.