The NRA's Image Improves as Support for Gun Control Slips

[LoginName]

Who would'a thunk it?

The antis must be having a collective brain aneurism over this...

Updated April 16, 2007

Public opinion surveys taken before the Virginia Tech shootings, showed that over time Americans had become less disposed to support gun control measures than they were in the years surrounding the Columbine school shootings in 1999.

For example, Americans have a better opinion of the National Rifle Association these days than they did in the mid 1990's. Over this same period, public calls for stricter gun-control laws have also quieted somewhat. A recent Pew nationwide survey found a 52%-to-32% majority of respondents holding a favorable opinion of the NRA, which will hold its massive annual convention on April 13-15 this year in St. Louis. While this is the first time since 1994 that the favorability rating of the group has crossed the 50% mark, positive views of the NRA have been inching upward in Pew polls in recent years.

Opinions of the NRA have improved among most demographic and political groups, but the anti-gun control advocacy organization has made its greatest gains among its traditional constituencies - men, whites and Republicans. Favorable views of the NRA among men, for example, jumped 11 percentage points, from 51% in 1995 to 62% in 2007. By contrast, favorable views among women stand at 42%, little changed from the 1995 level. And, while favorability rose 8 points among whites between 1995 and 2007, favorable views among blacks were essentially unchanged.

Republicans, who held the most favorable view of the NRA in 1995, not only continue to hold the most favorable view in 2007 (72% favorable), but also registered the largest gain in the number holding favorable views of the group -- a 20-percentage point increase. Among Democrats, the increase in positive opinions was very modest. As a result, the gap between the attitudes of Republicans and Democrats toward the NRA grew much wider. In 1995, the gap measured 16-percentage points; by 2007 it had doubled to 32 points.

The NRA remains most popular in the South and the Midwest. The Midwest also experienced the largest increase in favorable views of the group, but attitudes in the West also became substantially more pro-NRA.

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.

Most recently, in October 2006, 56% of people told Gallup they favored stricter gun-sales laws. However, when given the choice in that poll between enforcing current gun laws more strictly or doing that plus passing new gun laws, most people (53%) preferred only that current laws be enforced more strictly.

At the same time, attitudes toward guns themselves are shifting. When asked whether a gun in the house makes the house safer or more dangerous, 47% said safer in October 2006 - up from 35% in August 2000 and 42% in October 2004.

http://pewresearch.org/pubs/443/the-nras-image-improves-as-support-for-gun-control-slips

 

[95thFoot]

And I'll bet the ultralib Pew org. is literally gagging reporting this....


I think it's clear, that everybody, incl. the libs, is starting to realize that gun control doesn't work. It's like the Soviet pols in the 1980s who began to admit to themselves that Communism is a joke and doesn't work. Of course, our own universities are still full of people twenty years later, who think Communism is still a great idea, it just wasn't implemented correctly....

It's how the libs react to this conversion on the proverbial road to Damascus that will matter. Will they become gun-friendly, or will they go for an outright repeal of the 2nd Amendment, skipping all the baby steps of gun control?

 

[Wingwiper]

And when you LEAST expect it????????

I would still TRUST BUT VERIFY and keep a SHARP eye over the shoulder for te Boxers, Feinsteins and Rosie's who will make an Effort to introduce a New Irreversible Gun Control Measure. Don't get FALSE HOPES built, stay alert.

 

[matt1956]

It wouldn't suprise me to see them go for an all out repeal of the 2A.

Like I said, I think they ar on the ropes right now and getting scared.

BUT we need to ensure we keep them on the ropes, give them too much and we may just get sucker punched and put down for the count.

 

[calsdad]

I don't really remember what the media climate was like in regards to firearms back in the early 90's before the AWB - but am starting to see articles pop up here and there with people proposing that the 2nd amendment is outdated and should be scrapped.

Seems like there might be the thought in some libtard minds that they really need to go after the 2nd in order to realize their gun free utopian dreams.

Although this worries me some - I wonder if this isn't a sign of the cracking up of the liberal movement, all of their behind the scenes shenanigans have not gotten them the results they wanted - so they are trying another ploy.

I have to believe that if liberals start attacking the Constitution it will not turn out well for them.

 

[matt1956]

It just amazes me that what they dont get is that the only thing, the only amendment that ensures and secures all other amendments, is the 2nd.

With out it.. the goverment has no need to follow any of the others and can destroy them as they see fit.

I think there was and is a reason for the order of the amendments.

 

[Dick]

Seems like there might be the thought in some libtard minds that they really need to go after the 2nd in order to realize their gun free utopian dreams.

I'm sure they've been having wet dreams about that for some time. While we can't let ourselves get complacent about that possibility, it's hard to imagine that they could succeed in repealing the 2nd. As an example of the difficulty, look what happened to the Equal Rights Amendment, which is [at least on one level] something that you'd think would have had widespread support.

Another approach might be to get the Supreme Court to rule that the 2nd defines a collective, rather than individual, right. In that regard we can take considerable comfort in the recent Federal court ruling concerning gun rights in DC. And, whatever other failings he may have, I give thanks every day that George Bush had the wisdom to put John Roberts and Sam Alito on the court, which should serve to block that avenue of attack for at least the forseeable future.

 

[Garys]

I don't really remember what the media climate was like in regards to firearms back in the early 90's before the AWB - but am starting to see articles pop up here and there with people proposing that the 2nd amendment is outdated and should be scrapped.

It's a change in tactics. The anti gun forces see that the Supreme Court is going to take a more conservative approach to issues. This means they are not going to be able to use liberal judges to legislate from the bench. They also see that they are losing in the state legislatures as more and more pass shall carry laws and castle doctrine laws.

As I wrote in another thread, they think they will have more luck amending the Constitution and solving the "problem" once and for all. I don't think they are right, but they are also patient and will keep trying.

I wonder what the reaction would be if a conservative group proposed alterations to the First Amendment using the same logic?

Gary