April 8th, 2009
Instapundit posted this bit:
GALLUP: SUPPORT FOR GUN CONTROL AT HISTORIC LOW. “In Gallup polling conducted prior to last week’s gun massacre at an immigrant center in Binghamton, N.Y., only 29% of Americans said the possession of handguns by private citizens should be banned in the United States. While similar to the 30% recorded in 2007, the latest reading is the smallest percentage favoring a handgun ban since Gallup first polled on this nearly 50 years ago.”
Honestly, I’m not at all surprised. I think several decades of big and more restrictive government, most of which “meant well,” has left a lot of folks disillusioned. The relative failure of the Bush administration and the Republican Congressional majority in the 21st Century in regards to traditional conservative ideals has not weakened the appeal of those Conservative ideals. In fact, for many it has had the opposite effect.
What did surprise me a bit was the historical graph:
From Gallup
I would not have guessed that 60% of poll respondents favored the outright banning of handguns in 1960.
April 8th, 2009 at 1:15 pm
It’s not completely shocking. They had an outright ban on handguns make it on as a ballot question in Massachusetts in the ’70s. Obviously, it failed. But, you’d have to have the public support and reason to believe it would pass building for years before you’d actually try a campaign like that.
The funny thing is that I actually don’t know if the same results could be had again in MA if it made it to the ballot, even though support for gun ownership has generally gone up. Those are the same people who keep turning down ballot initiatives to lower their own taxes…