The WP’s Scott Clement highlights a few other things in the poll prior to the information on guns
Over three-quarters of Americans doubt the nation’s ability to stop “lone wolf†terrorist attacks by individuals acting on their own, according to a new Washington Post-ABC News poll.
Despite widespread doubts about security, the poll finds fears of a family member being a victim of terrorism have not risen since a shooting in San Bernardino, Calif., killed 14 and attacks in Paris last month that left 130 people dead.
An interesting dichotomy. As to the first, when citizens learn that the Department Of Homeland Security refuses to actually vet people coming to the U.S. via their social media accounts because it might Offend them and other silly notions, including people from areas known to be hotbeds of Islamic terrorism, they realize that the government is full of politically correct idiots, led by an overall idiot. Doesn’t inspire much confidence in stopping terrorists. As to the second, perhaps it’s because more citizens are armed?
President Obama, who addressed the nation in a rare Oval Office speech following the shootings, continues to receive negative marks for handling terrorism and dealing with Islamic State militants. Despite his call for greater gun restrictions aimed at keeping high-powered guns out of terrorist hands, the Post-ABC poll finds record high opposition to a ban on assault weapons.
The poll finds that 51% disapprove of Obama’s overall handling of his job, along with 53% disapproving of his handling of terrorism and 59% against his handling of ISIS. Then we get
That’s right, more want citizens to be armed. We can’t quite dig into the numbers, as it seems those questions have been embargoed for the moment in the poll data.
On a specific policy, 53 percent of Americans now oppose a national ban on assault weapons, with opposition rising 11 percentage points from 2013 to its highest level in Post-ABC polling since 1994.
Huh. Democrats have been yammering for more and more gun control, and citizen support against Democrat proposals keeps rising.
Crossed at Right Wing News.
Reagan wanted to ban assault type guns
Why that matters is unknown to anyone.
The assault weapon ban was allowed to expire because it showed no impact on crime. Liberals like john think the best way to solve a problem is to keep doing the same things that didn’t work before.
You really cannot argue with their logic because there is no logic in their thinking at all.
Those rifles were never banned. If you owned one you could keep it.
Yes, but if you owned one you could not trade it or sell it.
It was also illegal to manufacture the weapons.
The law was a ban that didn’t work. Yet people of your ilk want to do the same thing again.
What is that ol’ definition of “insanity?”
Yes, Reagan did support it, because there had been a problem with criminals getting their hands on them and using them in gang and/or drug related crimes in the 70’s, 80’s, and early 90’s. The prevailing thought was that a ban on these scary looking weapons would reduce the amount available to criminals.
Alas, what was good intentioned was also wrong. Because said ban had a minuscule effect.
You’re preaching at the wrong person, John. While I very much appreciate Reagan, and think he was a great president, I don’t sit in reverence to his memory. I’m abhor many of his environmental policies (James Watts, anyone?), and he made a few mistakes, some in good conscious, like the amnesty.
At the time, people were in favor of banning new ownership of certain guns. They were using emotion, rather than logic based on evidence. Times have changed, and people are more in favor of not banning “assault weapons”. In Reagan’s time, there wasn’t a concern that we’d have to defend ourselves in the streets from the Soviets. Or that the government would let in hardcore Islamic jihadis.