Americans’ Support For Stricter Gun Laws Has Dropped Since Uvalde And Buffalo Shootings

Topline

Days after a mass shooting at an LGBTQ bar in Colorado Springs, Colorado, a new poll taken before the shooting shows support for stricter gun laws has slipped in recent months since two earlier mass shootings, in Uvalde, Texas, and Buffalo, New York.

A couple from the nearby town of Del Rio, TX pays their respects at a memorial for the victims of … [+] the mass shooting at Robb Elementary School on June 25, 2022 in Uvalde, Texas.

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Key Facts

While the majority of Americans still support stricter gun laws, a Gallup poll published Monday shows that the rate of U.S. adults who believe the sale of firearms should be more rigorously governed has slipped since June.

Some 57% of respondents said gun laws in the U.S. should be more strict, down 9 percentage points from the 66% who said the same in June, according to Gallup.

The poll found nearly one in three Americans (32%) said gun laws should be kept as they are, while one in 10 (10%) would like to see them loosened.

Respondents’ opinions differed greatly based on their political affiliations, with 86% of Democrats, 27% of Republicans and 60% of independent voters agreeing gun laws should be more strict.

Support among all three political groups has fallen since June, led by Republicans, who recorded the largest drop of 11 percentage points, Gallup said.

Tangent

Americans’ support for tougher gun laws tends to sharply rise after violence like mass shootings before eventually subsiding, according to Gallup. The 66% figure in June followed two highly-publicized mass shootings the previous month, when 21 people were killed during a shooting at at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde, Texas and 10 died in a grocery store shooting in Buffalo, New York in May.

What To Watch For

Support for gun legislation will likely rise again after the shootings of three football players at the University of Virginia last week and the mass shooting at an LGBTQ nightclub in Colorado on Saturday. The survey of 1,009 adults took place between October 3 and October 20, before either of the shootings, Gallup noted.

Big Number

604. That’s how many mass shootings have been reported in the U.S. this year, according to a tracker from the Gun Violence Archive, which defines a mass shooting as an incident that injures or kills four or more people.

Surprising Fact

Some 46% of Americans said they have a gun in their household, according to Gallup. American gun owners tend to be male, Republican, between the ages of 35 and 54 with an annual household income of $100,000 or more and live in rural areas in the south, the poll found.

Key Background

Gallup has tracked Americans’ views of gun laws since 1990, when crime rates were approaching historic peak and a record 78% of Americans supported tougher gun sale laws. The lowest figure recorded for stricter gun law support was 43%, taken in October 2011.