A recent poll released by the Pew Research Center shows that support for the NRA is growing, with a corresponding decline in support for the implementation of yet more restrictive gun legislation. 52% of those surveyed view the NRA in a favorable light--the first time since 1994 that the approval rating was over 50%. Only 32% view the NRA unfavorably--the lowest figure in the fourteen years the poll has been conducted.
Keep in mind that this growth in support for the NRA comes despite a (growing?) subset within the gun rights activist community that thinks the NRA needs to be (much) more aggressive in fighting for gun rights, much less willing to play both sides of the issue, and much less concerned with its own money and power. I count myself among those with serious doubts about the NRA's apparent support of H.R. 297, the NICS "Improvement" Act (discussed here and here), and their apparent willingness to sabotage Parker v. DC, with their support for H.R. 1399/S. 1001, the District of Columbia Personal Protection Act. The NRA's support of the political aspirations of anti-rights candidates like Sheriff Bill Brown (thanks for doing the legwork, War on Guns), their support of "Project Exile" (thanks again, War on Guns), their support of "Gun Free School Zones," their support for "enforcing existing gun laws," etc., are yet more reasons that this poll may under-represent support for gun rights, because many who truly believe that "shall not be infringed" is irreconcilable with "enforcing existing gun laws" are none too keen on the NRA.
The Pew survey does show a marked decline in support for civilian disarmament laws.
As attitudes toward the NRA have warmed, attitudes toward more restrictive gun control have cooled. In September 1990, 78% of respondents in a national survey told Gallup they felt that laws governing the sale of firearms should be stricter. The figure declined throughout the 1990s and reached its lowest point (51%) in October 2002. Since then support for stricter controls on guns has hovered in the mid-50s, reaching a peak of 60% in 2004.It would be interesting to see what the VPC or the Brady Bunch have to say about the apparent decline in public support for their policies, but I suspect that to get an acknowledgment of this development from them, I would have to pry it from their cold, dead fingers.
Happy Easter, everyone.
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7 comments:
Great post, Kurt. Your blog is definitely on my must read list. Does your setup support trackbacks? I tried to set up a trackback to one of your entries and it doesn't seem to work.
Thanks, DW. I'm going to expose my ignorance here, and confess that I don't really know what trackbacks are. I've seen the term before, but I don't know what it means.
I think the reason for the change in attitude is that some of these people are starting to realize after a few years is that all of those "feel good" laws haven't done any good.
That might have something to do with it, Bob. On a gun forum I frequent, some folks suggested that it might have something to do with the growing importance of the internet, and people finding alternative sources of news, and thus winning independence from the "Authorized Journalists" (thanks yet again, David Codrea) and their biases.
I like that idea--that I'm playing a part (albeit a vanishingly small one) in the process.
You keep writing as clearly and eloquently as you have been and there is no way your contribution could be called "vanishlngly small".
The clarity of your logic and analyses is crystal.
Careful, SA--you're going to send my ego into overdrive.
Just kidding--once again, thanks.
Hey DW, Blogspot does not support trackbacks. It does support something called backlinks, which sound like about the same thing, but now that I've enabled those, they don't seem to catch many of the external links to my blog. Hopefully I'll get that figured out eventually.
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