Polling Data on Guns

A national poll conducted for Mayors Against Illegal Guns in the spring of 2008 found that 77% of Americans favor requiring all guns sold in the U.S. to have a ballistic fingerprint, which allows police to determine from what gun a bullet was fired.¹

A national survey conducted for Mayors Against Illegal Guns in January 2007 found that 82% of respondents, including 75% of gun owners, favor requiring all guns sold in the U.S. to have a ballistic fingerprint.²

An October 2002 poll conducted for ABC News asked respondents whether they favored a law requiring every gun sold to be test-fired so law enforcement would have its ballistic fingerprint in case the firearm was used in a crime. Seventy-three percent of respondents support ballistic fingerprinting – 82% of non-gun owners and 61% of gun owners favor the law.³

1. Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research & the Tarrance Group for the Mayors Against Illegal Guns, Americans Support Common Sense Measures to Cut Down on Illegal Guns 6, (Apr. 10, 2008), available at http://www.mayorsagainstillegalguns.org/downloads/pdf/polling_memo.pdf. [↩]
2. Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research & The Tarrance Group for the Mayors Against Illegal Guns, Strong Public Support for Tough Enforcement of Common Sense Gun Laws (Graphs) 19 (Jan. 23, 2007), available at http://www.greenbergresearch.com/articles/1849/2630_MAIGslides.pdf. [↩]
3. ABC News Poll Conducted by TNS Intersearch (Oct. 16-20, 2002), available at http://pollingreport.com/guns2.htm. [↩]

The public favors laws that criminalize incidents where a child has access to a gun owned by his or her parents, takes it and uses it to shoot someone. An ABC News.com poll from 2000 found that 75% of Americans believe the child’s parents should be charged with a crime for failing to prevent the child from getting the gun.¹

1. ABC News.com Poll Conducted by ICR (Mar. 3-7, 2000), available at http://pollingreport.com/guns2.htm. [↩]

Over 87% of Americans support “child-proofing” firearms, 72.2% back technology that “personalizes” handguns (i.e., guns that can only be fired by authorized users), and 74.9% favor governmental safety standards for firearms.¹

More than 73% of Americans support the requirement that all newly sold handguns be personalized.²

1. Susan B. Sorenson, Regulating Firearms as a Consumer Product, Science, Nov. 19, 1999, at 1481-82. [↩]
2. Tom W. Smith, National Opinion Research Center (NORC)/University of Chicago, Public Attitudes Towards the Regulation of Firearms (Mar. 2007) (discussing the results of the 2001 “National Gun Policy Survey” conducted by NORC/University of Chicago), at http://www.icpgv.org/pdf/NORCPoll.pdf. [↩]

Eighty-five percent of Americans support requiring safety locks or trigger guards to be included with all new handgun purchases.¹

Nearly the same percentage of Americans – 84% – favor requiring gun manufacturers to integrate child safety locks into the design of all handguns sold in the United States.²

A large majority of Americans – 89% (including 85% gun owners) – support requiring child safety locks to be sold with all new handguns.³

A national study of police chiefs’ support for firearm regulations found that 82% of respondents support trigger locks on all new handguns sold.⁴

A 1999 ABC News/Washington Post poll found that 79% of respondents support a law requiring trigger locks on all stored guns.⁵

1. Gallup/CNN/USA Today Poll (June 11-13, 1999), available at http://pollingreport.com/guns2.htm. [↩]
2. CBS News/New York Times Poll (May 10-13, 2000), available at http://pollingreport.com/guns2.htm. [↩]
3. Princeton Survey Research Associates Poll for Newsweek (August 12-13, 1999), available at http://pollingreport.com/guns2.htm. [↩]
4. Amy Thompson et al., Police Chiefs’ Perceptions of the Regulation of Firearms, 30 Am. J. Prev. Med. 305, 309 (2006), at http://download.journals.elsevierhealth.com/pdfs/journals/0749-3797/PIIS0749379705005179.pdf. [↩]
5. ABC News/Washington Post Poll (Aug. 30 – Sept. 2, 1999), available at http://pollingreport.com/guns2.htm. [↩]

Nearly 88% of Americans support “child-proofing” firearms, and 74.9% favor governmental safety standards for firearms.¹

1. Susan B. Sorenson, Regulating Firearms as a Consumer Product, Science, Nov. 19, 1999, at 1481-82. [↩]

A January 2011 poll of registered voters found that 69% of respondents favor requiring all people purchasing ammunition to pass a criminal background check.¹

1. American Viewpoint/Momentum Analysis, Momentum Analysis & American Viewpoint National Survey (for Mayors Against Illegal Guns) (Jan. 2011) at http://www.mayorsagainstillegalguns.org/downloads/pdf/maig_poll_01_18_2011.pdf. [↩]

A national poll conducted for Mayors Against Illegal Guns in the spring of 2008 found that 67% of Americans favor prohibiting the sale of brightly-painted guns that can make a real gun look like a toy gun.¹

1. Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research & the Tarrance Group for the Mayors Against Illegal Guns, Americans Support Common Sense Measures to Cut Down on Illegal Guns 6, (Apr. 10, 2008), available at http://www.mayorsagainstillegalguns.org/downloads/pdf/polling_memo.pdf. [↩]

Sixty percent of poll respondents believe that laws covering the sale of handguns should be made more strict.¹

1. CBS News/New York Times Poll (Apr. 22-26, 2009). [↩]

Eighty-five percent of Americans favor limiting the sale of 50-caliber rifles, military firearms that combine long range, accuracy, and massive power.¹

1. Tom W. Smith, National Opinion Research Center (NORC)/University of Chicago, Public Attitudes Towards the Regulation of Firearms (Mar. 2007) (discussing the results of the “2006 General Social Survey” NORC/University of Chicago), at http://www.icpgv.org/pdf/NORCPoll.pdf. [↩]

Americans, in overwhelming numbers, believe that guns have no place at our colleges and universities. In one national survey conducted in 1999, 94% of Americans answered “No” when asked, “Do you think regular citizens should be allowed to bring their guns [onto] college campuses?”¹

1. David Hemenway, Deborah Azrael, Matthew Miller, National Attitudes Concerning Gun Carrying in the United States, 7 Inj. Prevention 283 (2001), at http://www.pubmedcentral.nih.gov/picrender.fcgi?artid=1730790&blobtype=pdf. [↩]