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Gun Policy

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A customer shops for a handgun at a gun store in Florida. (Joe Raedle/Getty Images)

Key facts about Americans and guns

About six-in-ten U.S. adults (58%) favor stricter gun laws. Another 26% say that U.S. gun laws are about right, while 15% favor less strict gun laws.

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For Most U.S. Gun Owners, Protection Is the Main Reason They Own a Gun

Gun owners in the United States continue to cite protection far more than other factors, including hunting and sport shooting, as a major reason they own a gun. About half of Americans who don’t own a gun say they could never see themselves owning one (52%) while nearly as many could imagine themselves as gun owners in the future (47%).

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Gun Policy

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    Modest Public Interest in Close of Zimmerman Trial

    Overview The final days of the trial of George Zimmerman, which concluded July 13 with a verdict of not guilty, attracted relatively modest public interest overall. In a weekend survey, 26% say they were following news about the trial very closely. This is lower than interest in the initial controversy over Trayvon Martin’s shooting when […]

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    Obama’s Gun Policy Announcement

    President Obama and Vice President Joseph Biden Wednesday unveiled their proposals for preventing the kind of mass shootings that most recently occurred at an elementary school in Newtown, Ct. Here are some of our public opinion findings that relate to some of what they had to say.

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    Public Divided over What Newtown Signifies

    Overview The shootings at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. on Friday have drawn widespread public interest. A weekend survey finds that 57% of Americans say they followed news about the tragedy there very closely. That is higher than interest in the shootings at an Aurora, Colo. movie theater in July (49% very closely), though […]

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    No Shift Toward Gun Control After Tucson Shootings

    The public remains divided — and deeply so along party lines — on the issue of gun control and gun rights. Most Americans say tragic events like the shooting are just the isolated acts of troubled individuals, and not a reflection of broader problems in American society.

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    Views of Gun Control — A Detailed Demographic Breakdown

    Opinion about gun control has been split since April 2009, but this marked a substantial change in attitudes from previous years in which majorities of Americans consistently prioritized gun control over gun rights. See a breakdown of opinion about gun control across numerous demographic categories.

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    A Year After Columbine Public Looks To Parents More Than Schools To Prevent Violence

    Introduction and Summary A year after the massacre at Colorado’s Columbine High School, the vast majority of the public believes it is the responsibility of parents to ensure that such tragedies are not repeated. In fact, a plurality identifies poor parenting — not peer pressure or violence in the media — as the primary cause […]