WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Majorities of Americans continue to favor stricter gun laws and an assault weapons ban in the U.S., but the public remains largely opposed to a ban on handguns.
A stable 56% of U.S. adults support stricter laws covering the sale of firearms in general, while 33% prefer the laws be kept as they are now and 10% want them to be less strict.
Americans continue to oppose an outright ban on handgun possession. In fact, the 20% of U.S. adults who would favor a law banning the possession of handguns, except by the police and other authorized persons, is down seven percentage points from last year and statistically tied with the 19% record low in the 65-year trend.
Americans are much more inclined to favor a ban on assault weapons, with a slim 52% majority saying there should be a ban on the manufacture, possession and sale of semiautomatic guns, known as assault rifles. However, the current level of support is lower than what Â鶹´«Ã½AV measured in two prior surveys.
These data are from Â鶹´«Ã½AV’s Oct. 1-12 Crime poll.
Stricter Gun Laws in U.S. Preferred by Steady 56%
The 56% of Americans preferring stricter laws for gun sales has been steady over the past three years. The high point in support for this measure, which Â鶹´«Ã½AV has tracked since 1990, was 78% in 1990 favoring stricter gun laws at a time when the nation’s crime rate was high.
Since then, calls for tougher gun control have generally spiked in the wake of prominent mass shootings and fallen as the media coverage of each has faded. The most recent example of this was in the aftermath of the May 2022 school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, that claimed the lives of 21 people. In the month after the attack, support for stricter gun laws jumped to 66%. Yet, by October 2022, the reading had fallen to 57%, about the level where it has remained since.
Partisans continue to offer sharply different preferences for gun control in the U.S., with 89% of Democrats supporting stricter gun laws compared with 56% of independents and 25% of Republicans. Democrats’ backing for tougher gun laws has ranged from 85% to 94% since 2017, while Republicans’ and independents’ have been significantly lower. Republicans’ current reading is essentially the same as the group’s 22% record low in 2020.
A 59% majority of Republicans favor keeping firearms sales laws as they are now, while 15% prefer less strict laws. In addition to the majority of independents who back stricter gun laws, 31% would like to see them kept the same and 12% support stricter laws.
Support for Handgun Ban Near Record Low
Â鶹´«Ã½AV has measured public support for a ban on handguns since 1980 and, before that, had asked a similar question about “a law which would forbid the possession” of “pistols and revolvers.” Support for banning the ownership of handguns by unauthorized people peaked at 60% in 1959, the initial reading. Since then, support has never risen to the majority level and has been consistently below 30% since 2008, including the current near-record low.
The decline in support for a handgun ban this year is largely owed to Democrats, whose backing has fallen by 16 points since 2023 to 33% -- a new low -- after the group showed increasing support for a ban the prior two years. Republicans’ 6% support is steady, matching the party’s record low point. Independents’ 22% reading is not meaningfully different from last year but is significantly higher than the group’s 14% historical low in 2021.
Assault Weapons Ban Backed by Slim Majority of U.S. Adults, Most Democrats
Americans are much more supportive of a ban on assault rifles than on handguns, although support is significantly lower now (52%) than it was in Â鶹´«Ã½AV’s initial reading in 2019 (61%) and is down slightly from 55% in 2022. Compared with 2019, support for an assault weapons ban is lower among Republicans (27%) and independents (50%). Meanwhile, Democrats (82%) steadily and broadly favor a ban on semiautomatic guns.
Bottom Line
A majority of Americans have an appetite for stricter gun laws in the U.S., and that includes an assault weapons ban -- but not a ban on handguns. Democrats continue to be most supportive of gun control, but even they are much less likely than before to call for banning handguns. For now, gun policy does not rank highly among the most important problems on Americans’ minds, but past data show this often changes -- at least temporarily -- after a high-profile mass shooting event in the U.S.
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