Wednesday, May 6, 2009
Posted on Tue, May. 05, 2009
Support shrinking for new efforts to regulate guns, polls show
By RICHARD S. DUNHAM
Houston Chronicle
WASHINGTON — Amid a wave of publicity about drug-related gun violence along the Mexican border and police killings in U.S. cities, an increasing number of Americans oppose new government efforts to regulate guns.
Recent nonpartisan polls show shrinking support for new gun-control measures and strong public sentiment for enforcing existing laws instead. So strong is the shift in public opinion that a proposed assault-weapons ban — once backed by 3 in 4 Americans — now rates barely 1 in 2.
Frank Newport, the editor-in-chief of the Gallup Poll, told reporters Tuesday that "every bit of data is showing us that Americans are getting more conservative about gun control."
A CNN poll conducted in April found that 39 percent of Americans wanted stricter gun-control laws, down from 50 percent in 2000.
Forty-six percent said the gun laws should stay as they are, while 15 percent said they should be loosened — up from 9 percent in 2000.
When asked to identify the best way to reduce gun violence, 61 percent of Americans said stronger enforcement of existing laws, while 27 percent opted for stronger laws, according to an ABC News-Washington Post poll, also conducted in April.
Even an assault-weapons ban is not the political "sure thing" it once was. An April 23-26 poll by NBC News and The Wall Street Journal found that support for curbing the sale of assault weapons and semiautomatic rifles has dropped from 75 percent in 1991 to 53 percent today.
Andrew Arulanandam, a spokesman for the National Rifle Association, said the latest polls confirm what his gun-rights group has been saying all along.
"We have adequate gun laws on the books to address every situation," he said.
The shifting public mood on gun issues is one reason the Democratic administration is not trying to reinstate the assault-weapons ban that Congress let expire in 2004.
Presidential spokesman Robert Gibbs says President Barack Obama believes that "we can make a significant dent in gun violence . . . through enforcement of the existing laws."
Elected officials in California and Pennsylvania have responded to the killings of four police officers in Oakland, Calif., and three in Pittsburgh by calling for restoration of the decade-long ban.
Gun-control advocates have also pushed to revive the ban as a way to stem the flow of firearms illegally smuggled from the United States into Mexico.
But despite support for limits from California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger, a Republican, and Pennsylvania Gov. Ed Rendell, a Democrat, Congress seems unlikely to act.
Rep. John Culberson, R-Houston, called diminished public support for gun-control measures "a good thing."
He said the recent poll findings will help lawmakers "resist pressure from this administration to pass more gun-control legislation."