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The NRA and the gun manufacturer lobby continues to be successful in buying Republican politicians, but a new Washington Post - ABC News poll indicates that the malevolent forces are losing the battle to win support from average Americans. Indeed, the vast majority of Americans support laws that are anathema to the gun lobby: universal background checks and red flag laws. Solid majorities support a ban on high capacity magazines and assault rifles and even a mandatory buy back of assault rifles. The obstacle to such common sense reforms? Republicans in Congress and state legislatures across the country. If the overwhelming majority of Americans want these gun control measures, there are simple steps they can take, the most important one being to vote a straight Democrat ticket in every election and let Republicans know why they are doing so. This process can start here in Virginia in less than two months where Virginia Republicans can be paid back for the arrogance and slavish self-prostitution to the gun industry. Here are highlights from the Washington Post on the poll findings:
Americans across party and demographic lines overwhelmingly support expanded background checks for gun buyers and allowing law enforcement to temporarily seize weapons from troubled individuals, according to a Washington Post-ABC News poll, as President Trump and Republicans face fresh pressure to act.
Although the poll finds a continued partisan divide on more far-reaching gun-control proposals, public opinion is firmly behind Democrats’ push for action as Congress returns to Washington on Monday. More Americans say they trust congressional Democrats over Trump to handle the nation’s gun laws, 51 percent to 36 percent, with independents siding with Democrats by a 17-point margin — a divide that could have political ramifications for the 2020 presidential and congressional elections.
The Post-ABC poll finds 86 percent of Americans support implementing “red-flag” provisions, which allow guns to be taken from people judged to be a danger to themselves or others. And 89 percent support expanding federal background checks to cover private sales and gun-show transactions. Both measures are supported by at least 8 in 10 Republicans, white evangelical Christians, members of gun-owning households and other traditionally conservative groups.
More far-reaching restrictions also have majority support, the survey finds, albeit by more modest margins. Six in 10 support a federal ban on gun magazines holding more than 10 rounds of ammunition.
A 56 percent majority supports a new federal ban on sales of military-style assault weapons, and nearly all who support such a ban also back a mandatory federal buyback program for those weapons . . . .
Late last month, Trump backed away from tougher restrictions, telling NRA chief executive Wayne LaPierre that universal background checks were off the table.
“This is a pattern,” said Rep. David N. Cicilline (D-R.I.), a leader of gun-control efforts in the House. “They sort of hope time passes and people forget about it. The good news is, the American people are not going to let them forget about it. They’re going to demand that Congress and the Senate do something to reduce gun violence in this country.”
The poll finds a stark gender divide on the gun issue. More than two-thirds of women say they are worried about a mass shooting in their community, compared with just more than half of men. Women are also 20 points more likely to be confident than men that passing stricter gun-control laws would reduce mass shootings.
Women are more than twice as likely to trust Democrats in Congress than Trump to handle gun laws, 59 percent to 28 percent.
A majority of Democrats (87 percent) and independents (55 percent) are confident new gun restrictions would have that effect, while a minority of Republicans agree (34 percent).
Americans’ anxiety about a mass shooting happening in their own community has ticked up, with 6 in 10 saying they are greatly or somewhat worried about that possibility. A partisan divide on that question has widened: Democrats and independents are more worried now than they were in 2013, while Republicans are less worried.
Besides the red flag bill, the House Judiciary Committee is expected to advance a proposed federal ban on high-capacity magazines and a third bill that would bar people convicted of misdemeanor hate crimes from being eligible to purchase firearms — measures that go beyond the party’s previous comfort zone.
The obstacles continue to be Republicans who argue that the Democratic bills would infringe on law-abiding gun owners’ constitutional rights while doing little to prevent the actual causes of mass shootings. That is a perspective shared with a highly motivated slice of the party’s conservative base and promoted by its most aggressive advocacy group, the NRA.
But there is a rising concern in the GOP that the party is putting itself at risk if it doesn’t take some kind of action to address the epidemic of mass bloodshed.
Again, if you want gun control, vote Republicans out of office. It is really that simple.
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