Polling from the Associated Press and NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows many Americans in support of stricter regulations around guns.
The data showed a whopping 79 percent in favor of a federal law demanding universal background checks for gun purchases, a policy that has repeatedly faced opposition from Republicans in elected office.
“So-called universal background checks will not prevent crime and will turn otherwise law-abiding citizens into criminals,” Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) claimed amid debate in the Senate after a mass shooting at a Michigan school perpetrated by a teenager. Grassley’s simplistic description fails to incorporate that the same claim of logic could be applied to just about anything. Yes, if you fail to abide by a single piece of some law, you could be deemed a criminal, even if you never came close to breaking a single other law in your life. Is that a reason to just not impose any laws?
In the AP-NORC polling, which was completed August 14, 64 percent from the overall total specifically said they strongly support the idea of universal background checks, while an additional 15 percent said they somewhat backed the concept. Only 28 percent identified “protecting the right to own guns” as “extremely important” to them, while 62 percent described stopping mass shootings as such.
This area adds to the concerns around which Republicans in elected office are often out of step with so many Americans, another major example being abortion. Polls show many, many Americans in favor of rights to an abortion beyond the vision harbored and pushed by GOP leaders in many states. Their restrictions include exceptions for situations involving a threat to the pregnant person’s health or circumstances like rape and incest, though even in these situations, exceptions don’t automatically mean help for these individuals. Serious concerns have circulated about the possibility, for instance, of a pregnant person whose health is threatened facing mounting impacts as the health care professionals dealing with their case grapple with whether the individual situation is serious enough to warrant the exception.
