A new CNN survey suggests a rising tide of support for stricter gun laws in America, with more adults saying now is the time for action following the gruesome Parkland high school massacre.
The survey that was conducted by SSRS for the news network found that 70 percent of adults in America favor tighter firearms restrictions and just 27 percent now oppose them.
A month after the Sandy Hook elementary shooting in Newtown, Connecticut, a substantially lower 55 percent of respondents said they favored new gun controls with 44 percent opposed to additional regulations.
A new CNN survey suggests a rising tide of support for stricter gun laws in America, with more adults saying now is the time following the gruesome Parkland high school massacre
Weeks after Columbine, the 1999 school shooting that rocked the nation, Americans said 62 percent to 34 percent that they wanted the government to step in.
Nearly 20 years later, America may be moving toward a shift in gun culture in the wake of the Florida high school massacre that left 17 people dead.
Even the nation’s Republican president, who has stressed in the two weeks since Parkland that there’s no bigger supporter of the Second Amendment than him, has proposed tighter background checks to keep the mentally ill from owning firearms.
President Donald Trump has also proposed new age limits on who can own certain types of high-powered firearms. He wants to raise the minimum age for purchase from 18-21.
Florida Gov. Rick Scott, also a Republican, has said the barrier should be lifted across the board for all gun ownership from 18 to 21.
The state’s Republican Sen. Marco Rubio has also expressed openness to measures that would make it more difficult for teens like the Parkland shooter to buy certain types of weapons.
Respondents to CNN’s survey said 57 percent to 39 percent that they are in favor of an outright ban on semi-automatic weapons like the AR-15 that the Parkland shooter used.
More popular was a ban on high-capacity magazines that had the support of 63 of those surveyed compared to the 34 percent who were opposed.
Americans have consistently favored proposals to keep felons and the mentally ill from owning firearms – 87 percent say so now, which is the same as roughly a year ago in the same survey.
Additionally, 71 percent support a ban on gun sale to individuals under the age of 21, Scott’s proposal. It is opposed by 27 percent of Americans.
American adults weren’t as sure that more comprehensive background checks were the answer. Comparatively fewer, 59 percent, said they would be helpful to preventing mentally ill from owning guns, and 36 percent opposed it.
The same poll gave the NRA a net 46 percent favorable rating and a net 49 percent negative rating, a number that is also reflective of some businesses’ decisions to end their partnerships with the gun group
President Trump and the National Rifle Association’s Wayne LaPierre warned that liberals would end the Second Amendment if they had things their way in speeches last week to a conservative activists, but CNN’s poll showed that a constitutional overhaul would be wildly unpopular.
Nearly 9 in 10 Americans dismissed an outright ban on firearms, including 83 percent of Democrats, with a mere 11 percent voicing support to such a law.
They were more open to the idea of limiting the number of firearms a person could own – 47 percent said they favored it and 50 percent said they were opposed.
The same poll gave the NRA a net 46 percent favorable rating and a net 49 percent negative rating, a number that is reflective of top businesses’ decisions to end their partnerships with the gun group.
President Donald Trump also had a rough, 35 percent approval rating in the survey, a tie with the lowest of his presidency, which came in December.
The survey, however, heavily sampled Democrats, who comprised 33 percent of the adults pooled, over Republicans, who accounted for 23 percent, with independently-affiliated voters making up 44 percent of the audience.