Pennsylvania voters overwhelmingly want stricter controls on guns, including background checks on all purchases and bans on assault weapons and high-capacity magazines, according to a new poll released Wednesday.
By a 19 to 1 margin (95 percent to 5 percent), voters quizzed by Quinnipiac University pollsters said they favor requiring universal background checks.
By 3 to 2 margins, they favor a nationwide ban on assault weapons (60 percent to 37 percent) and a ban on the sale of ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 bullets (59 to 39 percent).
"Keystone voters, especially voters in urban areas, seem to have had enough of gun violence," said Timothy Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Polling Institute, in a statement. "By large margins, voters don't think assault weapons belong in the hands of any gun owner."
The poll surveyed 1,221 registered voters between Jan. 22 and Sunday and has a margin of error of plus or minus 2.8 percentage points.
On guns, the poll also showed:
- More voters (46 percent) think armed guards in schools would do more than stricter gun laws (42 percent) to reduce gun violence in schools.
- More voters (49 percent) think gun ownership does more to protect people from becoming victims of crime than think it does more to put people's safety at risk (40 percent). Conversely, far more voters (61 percent) think letting citizens own assault weapons makes the country more dangerous than think the weapons make the country safer (28 percent).
- More voters (44 percent) would be likelier to vote for a member of Congress who votes for a ban on assault weapons than would be less likely (28 percent).
- Twelve times more people think laws governing gun sales in the United States should be stricter (60 percent to 5 percent). About a third (32 percent) think the laws should be kept the same. About the same percentages (57 to 4 percent) think the same way about laws governing gun sales in Pennsylvania. More than a third (35 percent) think the state laws should stay the same.
- More voters trust President Barack Obama to make the right decision about gun laws than Republicans in Congress (47 percent Obama, 38 percent Republicans in Congress).
- Voters views of the National Rifle Association are mixed with 31 percent saying they view the gun-rights organization favorably, 35 percent saying they view it unfavorably and 32 percent saying they haven't heard enough about the group to have an opinion.
Kim Stolfer, chairman of Firearms Owners Against Crime and an NRA member, called the poll "an example of propaganda in action" since the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn.
"For two months, American citizens have been bombarded by what they can consider to be facts - that we don't have any laws on guns, we need more laws," Mr. Stolfer said. "They make these responses (to pollsters) based on they don't know what laws we have now."
The nation has plenty of gun laws that need to be enforced, including state and federal laws violated during the Sandy Hook shooting, Mr. Stolfer said.
"It's not gun violence. It's the perpetrator of the crime, it's his way of handling things," he said. "Politicians know how polls work. So you put a bunch of rhetoric out there. You do it right after an emotional event. We've seen it time and time again. All it just does it reinforce the fact that you've been effective at planting an idea."
Polls should not govern lawmaking anyway, he said.
"The reason we have a Bill of Rights is to remove our freedoms from the vicissitudes of public opinion," he said. "The founding fathers said that because they know how easily manipulated the public opinion can be. And we don't do government in this country by poll. We do it based on the rule of law and in America, the rule of law, the highest rule of all, is the Constitution."
The Supreme Court has ruled that the Second Amendment to the Constitution guarantees law-abiding American residents the right to own guns.
Gun rights lawyer Philip G. Kline said the poll is skewed.
"Society is basically 'Leave me alone' or 'Yeah, I want the government to help me.' And the people who like to get consensus and they want the government to help them tend to be the ones who respond eagerly to those polls," he said. "The sorts of people who keep to themselves don't answer them."
Shira Goodman, executive director of CeaseFirePA, a coalition of groups and individuals advocating for stricter gun control, said the poll reflects reality.
"I'm pleased because I think it confirms what we thought we would see if an independent pollster did this, certainly about the background checks," Ms. Goodman said. "We've known for a long time that most regular citizens who aren't involved in this think background checks make a lot of sense and that even most gun owners and even most NRA members think this. ... We know that this is something people are questioning. ... We're really heartened to see that."
Contact the writer: bkrawczeniuk@timesshamrock.com