Rasmussen Reports: Most Say No to Federal Control of Guns

Rasmussen Reports:

Most voters still don’t think the federal government should have the final say on gun ownership and don’t like a country in which only the government has guns.

A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey finds that just 34% of Likely U.S. Voters believe laws regarding the ownership of guns should be the responsibility of the federal government. That’s down from a high of 38% in December. Slightly more (36%) believe gun ownership is a state government responsibility, while 18% say local governments should have the final say. Twelve percent (12%) aren’t sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)

The national survey of 1,000 Likely Voters was conducted on September 20-21, 2015 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Fieldwork for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC . See methodology.

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Well, this is the type of survey that cuts both ways.  Sure, we like state control of gun ownership when we’re talking about pro-gun states like Texas, Florida, Kentucky that can pass pre-emption laws that keep cities and towns from passing their own gun-control policies.

However, when we talk about pro-gun control states like New York, California, New Jersey, we are miffed by the idea that states can contravene the Second Amendment to the Constitution and enact all sorts of onerous laws, like bans on widely popular and commonly owned firearms or universal registration schemes, among many others.

For me, I think we can simplify the whole debate if we just read and follow what the Second Amendment actually says, “A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the People to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed.”

As it says very clearly, “shall not be infringed,” so the very idea that we need governments — whether it be local, state, federal — to pass more laws to restrict or regulate the Second Amendment seems contradictory to the text itself.  Basically, it tells the government to leave our right to own and carry firearms alone!  So how about, you (the government) leave it alone!