Stephen Gutowski of the Washington Free Beacon reports on new polling related to recent incidents of large-scale violent attacks involving guns.
Americans remain split on guns and gun control but find some areas of common ground, a poll released on Monday shows.
The CBS News Poll found 49 percent favor a “nationwide ban on assault weapons” while 48 percent oppose it. It found 51 percent favor a ban on bump-fire stocks and similar devices while 46 percent oppose a ban. It also found 57 percent of respondents favored making laws governing gun sales stricter while 40 percent favored keeping them the same or making them less strict.
The results underscore how divided Americans remain when it comes to guns. Partisan opinions remain in stark opposition on most questions, according to the poll. It found that while 83 percent of Democrats favor stricter gun-control laws, 57 percent of Republicans thought gun laws should be kept as they are.
While 60 percent pointed to stricter gun control as an answer for preventing gun violence, 51 percent pointed toward more civilian gun-carry. While 52 percent said they weren’t very concerned about a mass shooting where they live, 48 percent said they were at least somewhat concerned. Those polled were split on how serious the level of gun violence in America is with 32 percent calling it a crisis, 37 percent calling it very serious but not a crisis, 24 percent calling it somewhat serious, and 7 percent calling it not much of a problem.
