NEW YORK, Jan. 18 (UPI) — The December massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., seems to have swayed public opinion on stricter gun-control laws, a poll indicated.
The New York Times/CBS News poll found that 54 percent of Americans say they think gun-control laws should be tightened, up markedly from a CBS News poll in April that found that only 39 percent backed stricter laws.
A gunman killed 20 children, six adults and himself at the school Dec. 14.
The poll also found that most of 1,110 respondents — about 90 percent — said they would support a background-check requirement for all gun purchases, and about 60 percent of respondents said they would support a ban on high-capacity magazines, such as the 15- and 30-round magazines that have been used in several recent mass shootings.
“I’m from a rural area in the South, I grew up in a gun culture, my father hunted,” Leslie Hodges, a 64-year-old gun owner from Atlanta, said in a follow-up interview. “However, I don’t believe being able to have a gun keeps you from thinking reasonably about changes that would keep someone from walking into a school and being able to kill 20 children in 20 seconds. I think that we can say, O.K., we want the freedom to have guns in this country, but there are rules we can all agree to that will make us all safer.”
The national poll was conducted Jan. 11 to Jan. 15, before the president announced his proposals to curb gun violence. It has a sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.
Another poll, an NBC News/Wall Street Journal survey, showed that the National Rifle Association is more popular than Hollywood.
The powerful lobby for gun makers and gun owners has a 41 percent positive approval rating, while Hollywood and the entertainment industry have a 23 percent favorable rating, the poll found.
The NRA and other critics have blamed the entertainment and video-game industries for contributing to an American culture of violence.
The poll found 34 percent of respondents gave the giant gun-rights group a negative rating, while 46 percent said the same about Hollywood and the entertainment industry.
At the same time, 56 percent of Americans said laws covering the sale of firearms should be made stricter, the poll found.
Views about guns were closely tied to whether the respondent households had a gun, the poll found. Sixty-seven percent of people in homes without guns favored stricter laws while 44 percent in homes with guns favored making them stricter.
The NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll found 41 percent of Americans said someone in their household owned a gun.
The poll of 1,000 adults was conducted Jan. 12-15 and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.1 percentage points.
Copyright 2013 United Press International, Inc. (UPI).
1110 people surveyed is not a good sampling of the people in the U.S. This poll was done by the New York Times which is a well known left leaning rag. People on the East Coast tend to be liberals and just want a free ride, so any poll from there is not valid here. They certainly do not speak for me.
80% would not know difference between pump shotgun and lever action rifle.
If we have a major plane crash 75% of people would be in favor of safer planes
I can agree with what Obama stated about back round checks on every gun sale, (the only exclusion now is gun shows.)
I am also not surprised with the poll numbers. Most people in this country know anything about guns and also do not know about the second amendment.
This is BS. Simple as that. I never got a poll notice…have you
The New York Times/CBS News can really blow smoke. They polled 1110 people and found that 90% of them support some sort of stricter gun control. That’s really a good comparison considering that the population of the US is over 300 million. Those 1110 people sure don’t speak for me. Most people know who’s behind the NY BS. How about letting the people vote instead of taking a biased poll.
This poll came from the NY times, what would you expect. NY is pathetic. next disaster that comes there way, nobody should give them a dime. what a bunch of losers.
Sure make the innocent citizens suffer for what a newspaper says. pathetic,cruel, assinine etc.etc.etc.
None of the proposed controls would have done a thing to stop or prevent Sandy Hook or Columbine or Virginia Tech or Aurora or …
“None”? you shouldn’t use words you can’t back up with proof. There is the mental health issue that’s being addressed along with gun control. Don’t let the word “control” scare you. It’s a figure of speech. You gotta admit you really could live without an assault weapon. The Constitution satys “Right to bear arms”. Not “Right to bear assault weapons”.
Back in the day the word ARMS means weapons, any type of weapon.
After the past election I wouldn’t believe any numbers these polls tell us. They do the surveys with groups of people that they already know how they will answer, NBC and CBS are all liberal anyway therefore the results are tainted or fixed.
maybe…the polls for the presidental election were spot on except for maybe Faux News. So just what is your point?
You should have paid more attention, even the government run MSNBC showed romney neck and neck with obama in the polls. After the election was bought it showed obama way ahead. The polls were not even close.
I don’t know about MSNBC because I don’t watch it. The polls at the end of Oct and first part of Nov I saw had Pres. Obama ahead by 2% to 4%. That is just what he won by. The New York Times 538 blog (the one I trusted the most) was almost exact. They called it a landslide Electoral College vote (and it was) starting in late Oct. Guess it is just the polls you were watching. The ones I trusted were very accurate.