There will be much our opponents can latch on to in this study, but the results are interesting, nonetheless. The authors imply cultural inclination, while a factor in whether you support gun control or not, is not as causative as many studies have shown.
Our CAS allowed us to compute a direct measure of the respondent’s attitudes on egalitarian, libertarian and moral traditionalist issues. We then used those indexes to test whether they had any predictive value in informing opinion on gun control. While the egalitarian and libertarian indexes played some role in influencing opinion, our results indicated that demographic factors play as equally important a role. Moreover, when we included policy issues in our analysis, we found that our cultural indexes lost all significance.
The more I read studies like this, the more I think of rational ignorance of voters. Most people don’t know the issues, and don’t think about the issues in any consistent way. I don’t particularly like how they framed the issue here “banning ownership of assault weapons and semi-automatic weapons,” since assault weapon is a fictional category, made up by our opponents to confuse the public. Better to say ban semi-automatic weapons. I would also be interesting to see how it would poll if you used self-loading weapons, instead of throwing the word automatic in there. There was a tendency in this study to let one issue ride on another. So we speak of background checks and registration, allowing registration to ride on the back of background checks, or perhaps the other way around.
Americans are most united in their support for registration requirements/background checks, with 93% of respondents in our survey supporting such restrictions. Though there is more dissention, a majority of Americans also favor restrictions on assault/semi-automatic weapons and bans on carrying guns in public places. Sixty-three percent of respondents in our survey supported bans on assault/semi-automatic weapons and 57% favored bans on concealed weapons. Our survey revealed the most opposition to handgun bans, with only 22% of respondents in our survey favoring such bans. These opinions, of course, should be seen in the context by which respondents in our survey viewed the Second Amendment. The results indicated that 74% viewed the Second Amendment as intending to protect the right of an individual to own a gun, with only 26% viewing the Amendment as protecting the right of citizens to form a militia.
This is consistent with other polling I’ve seen on the issue. It has to drive our opponents nuts they can’t get traction on these specific issues, but the problem is the cultural identification part, I’d be willing to wager. When you get to specific policies, no one wants to come off as extreme, but none of those people saying they want to ban assault weapons, or want universal background checks, are motivated to turn it into a political movement. I’d be willing to bet in the gun owner demographic, it might even be possible to get some of the folks that support bans out to vote against a candidate who’s bad on the Second Amendment.
Here’s an interesting experiment. Take the same people, and have one surveyor tell them they represent a gun owners rights group, and another that they represent a gun violence prevention group. I’ll be given the same set of people you get wildly fluctuating numbers. I find these kinds of social studies interesting, but I don’t lend much credence to them. People are irrational beings, and tend toward ignorance when you start speaking on political topics. As much as people might say they vote based on issues, most do not. It is an emotional decision making process for most.
