Continued Bipartisan Support for Expanded Background Checks on Gun Sales

[billh58]

Two years after the failure of Senate legislation to expand background checks on gun purchases, the public continues to overwhelmingly support making private gun sales and sales at gun shows subject to background checks. Currently, 85% of Americans – including large majorities of Democrats (88%) and Republicans (79%) – favor expanded background checks, little changed from May 2013 (81%).

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Nearly eight-in-ten (79%) favor laws to prevent people with mental illness from purchasing guns, 70% back the creation of a federal database to track all gun sales, while a smaller majority (57%) supports a ban on assault-style weapons.

Almost identical shares of Republicans (81%) and Democrats (79%) support laws to prevent the mentally ill from buying guns. But other proposals are more divisive: 85% of Democrats favor creation of a database for the federal government to track gun sales, compared with 55% of Republicans. And while 70% of Democrats back an assault-weapons ban, only about half of Republicans (48%) favor this proposal.

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There continues to be a substantial partisan gap in opinions about whether it is more important to control gun ownership or protect gun rights – much larger, in fact, than the gap over specific gun proposals. Nearly three-quarters of Democrats (73%) say it is more important to control gun ownership; 71% of Republicans say it is more important to protect gun rights.

http://www.people-press.org/2015/08/13/continued-bipartisan-support-for-expanded-background-checks-on-gun-sales/

The need for gun control in this country is becoming more apparent to more people all across the political spectrum, but the "cold dead hands" extremist right-wingers (and their apologists) are fighting it tooth and nail.

Vote for Democrats who will support the majority of the people who are calling for tightened gun control measures in order to stem the obscene flow of guns into our streets and communities. The legal and illegal public carry of deadly weapons is not a Second Amendment issue, but rather a public health issue.

[guillaumeb]

1. Cognitive dissonance alert!

Many gun enthusiasts assure me that everyone wants more guns everywhere.

This post could cause brain explosions in the NRA universe.

And yes, the tide does appear to be changing.

30,000 gun deaths a year are hard to "explain away".