Gallup: ‘Less than half of Americans Support Stricter Gun Laws’

According to the latest Gallup survey, less than half of Americans, 47 percent, say they favor stricter gun laws, a near 10 point percentage drop from the 2012 survey done in the wake of the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, which found 58 percent in favor of tougher laws covering the sale of fire mars.

Gallup poll on the how strict laws covering the sale of firearms should be. (Photo: Gallup)

Meanwhile, 38 percent said the laws should be kept as they are now and only 14 percent said they should be made less strict.

As far as demographic breakdown, perhaps not surprisingly Democrats overwhelmingly favor tougher gun laws, at 71 percent compared with only 29 percent of Republicans, 32 percent of Conservatives and 36 percent of Independents.

Gallup breakdown of the demographics of the survey (Photo: Gallup)

Gallup also surveyed Americans on whether they believe handguns should be banned, finding that only about one in four respondents favor a ban for everyone except law enforcement and “other authorized persons.” By contrast, an almost record-high of 73 percent of Americans oppose placing a ban on handguns.

Gallup poll on support for a handgun ban. (Photo: Gallup)

The poll was conducted Oct. 12-15 of 2014 via telephone interviews with 1,017 random adults over the age of 18, living in the U.S. or the District of Columbia, and has margin of sampling error of ±4 percentage points at the 95% confidence level.

Half the respondents were called on a cellphone while the other half were contacted on a landline. Both using random-digit-dial methods.