Poll: 63% Say Stricter Gun Control Laws Won't Prevent Criminals From Getting Guns

A significant majority of Americans, in a new poll, do not see stricter gun control as an effective means of preventing criminals from getting guns. This has been argued on these pages for the past year. 

In the latest Reason-Rupe Poll, fully 63% of Americans remain skeptical whether tighter restrictions on buying and owning guns will be effective at keeping guns out of the hands of criminals. Only a third (32%), said stricter regulations would be effective in preventing criminals from obtaining guns.

As should not be a surprise, opinions did differ on ideological/political lines, though not to the extent one might think. Clearly, when it comes to the scourge of criminals using guns, common sense is a non-partisan influence on opinion. However, education might prove otherwise. 

Among Republicans respondents, 70% say stricter gun regulations would not be effective while just 26% say they would be effective.

Following closely behind, two-thirds of Independents do not see tighter restrictions to be effective while 30% think they will. 

Democrats are more divided on the issue with common sense playing an interesting role. While typically supportive of increased gun control, more than half (53%) of Democrat respondents think tighter restrictions on buying and owning guns would not prevent criminals from obtaining the weapons while 44% say they would prevent criminals from getting guns. 

Education and race also play a role in one's views in this poll as shown in the attached table. The more educated the person, the greater is their faith in stricter laws as a cure for criminal gun possession. One could argue that this is confidence based on faith in institutions rather than actual, real-world experience. That is, the more highly educated a person is, the less likely it is that they will be faced with gun violence on the streets or in their daily lives. The less educated, in general, are more likely to have their opinions informed by direct or indirect real-world experiences. 

There is also a disparity based on race but the most surprising result is the disparity between non-white men and non-white women. In this poll, exactly half of non-white women believed that stricter gun control can be effective against criminal gun use with 44% thinking the opposite. However, among non-white males, nearly two-thirds (63%) do not see gun control as effective with a third thinking it could be. Again, while a generalization, it could be argued that non-white men might have more real-world experience, direct and indirect, on such matters giving them a more common sense view of such matters.