Poll: Americans split over who to trust on gun control
A majority of Americans want to see the kinds of gun laws Democrats are pushing, according to a new poll by The Washington Post/ABC News, but voters are split when it comes to which party they trust on the issue.
According to the poll, conducted from March 7 to 10 among 1,001 adults, Americans favor the imposition of stricter gun laws by 52-45 percent, with three percent expressing no opinion.
When asked about individual policies, however, support tended to be much stronger: 91 percent said they support requiring background checks at gun shows; 82 percent backed the idea of making illegal gun sales a federal crime; 57 percent favored a nationwide ban on assault weapons. Half -- 50 percent - also supported the idea of placing an armed guard in every school.
Many Democrats have long called for the first three proposals - increased background checks on gun sales, a renewal of the assault weapons ban, and making penalties tougher for people who sell guns illegally - and have amped up efforts to pass gun safety legislation in the aftermath of the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut, in which 20 first-grade students were killed in their elementary school.
Even so, voters are split on whom to trust with regard to gun control: 42 percent of voters trust President Obama on the issue, while 41 percent trust Republicans. People in gun-owning households were much more likely to trust Republicans than Mr. Obama (56 percent to 26 percent) while those in non-gun-owning households expressed the reverse opinion: 58 percent trusted the president and 26 percent trust Republicans.
According to the survey, 78 percent of Americans have a strong opinion on the issue, with pro-gun control voters modestly outweighing those opposed to stronger gun laws, 42 percent to 36 percent.
This morning, the Senate Judiciary Committee will continue debating the proposed assault weapons ban, and the same committee last week approved a bipartisan measure that would make "straw purchasing" - knowingly buying firearms for someone legally prohibited from doing so - a felony. But the bulk of the legislation under consideration faces increasingly diminishing chances of making it to the Senate for a vote as economic issues dominate.
White House Press Secretary Jay Carney insists the issue still has a chance.
"In the wake of Newtown, I would argue that there's nothing partisan about common-sense solutions to reduce gun violence in America," Carney said in a press briefing yesterday. "The victims of gun violence aren't Democrats or Republicans, especially when they're children. And there ought to be - and there is - a path forward to reduce gun violence in America, much as the president laid out, that respects our Second Amendment rights."
