Support for gun control falls to 7-year low: Gallup



American's support for gun control has fallen to the lowest level in seven years, according to a Gallup survey released Wednesday.

According to the poll, 52% of U.S. adults say they want stricter gun laws, a five-point decrease from Gallup's last survey and the lowest reading since 2014. The findings come as violent crimes and homicides are rising in the U.S. and after Americans set a record for firearms purchases in 2020.

Gallup observed that calls for gun control typically spike when mass shooting events receive widespread media coverage and recede as that attention fades away. For instance, three years ago after the school shooting in Parkland, Florida, support for increased gun control surged to 67%, the highest level recorded since 1993.

Now, 35% of U.S. adults think laws that govern the sale of firearms should remain unchanged, while 11% say they favor less strict gun laws.

Support for gun control fell by 15 percentage points among Independents, which drove the overall 5% decrease in support recorded. Democrats remain nearly unanimous in support for stricter gun laws, while a majority of Republicans (56%) like gun laws as they are now, The remainder of Republicans are split between favoring increased gun control (24%) and wanting fewer gun restrictions (20%).

Additionally, support for a complete ban on handguns in the U.S. has reached an all-time low of 19%. Support for such a ban peaked at 60% when Gallup first asked the question in 1959 and has not reached a majority since.

"Americans' support for stricter gun laws has typically risen in the aftermath of high-profile mass shootings and fallen during periods without such events. Changes in the party occupying the White House may also influence preferences for gun laws," Megan Brenan wrote for Gallup. "Generally, the public favors stricter laws when Republicans are in office and less strict laws when Democrats are."

Perceptions about crime may be related to the lack of support for gun control. Gallup found that a vast majority of American gun owners (88%) cite protection from crime as the chief reason they own a gun.

"Polling was done shortly after the FBI's annual crime report documented a record one-year increase in the murder rate between 2019 and 2020, which may have made personal protection more salient in gun owners' minds than in past years," Gallup senior editor Jeffrey M. Jones said. "Gallup finds that Americans perceive increased crime in their area and in the U.S., more generally."

In September, the FBI reported a nearly 30% increase in homicides in 2020, the largest single-year increase ever recorded by the bureau. The FBI said the violent crime rate rose by 5.2% last year compared to the previous year.

According to Gallup, 31% of U.S. adults say they own a gun, a number that has remained relatively unchanged for decades.

Gallup: Majority of Americans now favor limited role for government since Biden took office



After a record high number of Americans said last year that the federal government should do more to solve the nation's problems, a new survey from Gallup finds that most Americans have reverted to thinking the government should have a more limited role.

Last September, when the nation was firmly in the grips of the coronavirus pandemic, with states locked down, businesses closed, and racial unrest dominating headlines, a record-high 54% of U.S. adults surveyed by Gallup said the government should do more to solve problems.

But in the year since then, President Joe Biden took office and started a massive expansion of the federal government's role in the pandemic response. Biden signed a $1.9 trillion coronavirus stimulus bill into law last spring and Democrats are seeking to follow that up with another $1 trillion infrastructure bill and a $3.5 trillion spending bill funding free community college tuition, child care, paid family leave, Medicaid expansion, and Biden's climate agenda.

Additionally, Biden issued a controversial executive order mandating that businesses with more than 100 employees force their workers to get vaccinated against COVID-19 or be tested regularly for the virus.

Now, Gallup finds that 52% of Americans say the government is doing too many things that should be left to individuals and businesses, while 43% say the government needs to do more to solve problems.

Last year's surge in support for big government was driven by Democrats and independents, who opposed how President Donald Trump was handling the coronavirus pandemic. Gallup notes that in times of crisis, Americans tend to favor more government action, as seen in a surge of trust in government after the 9/11 terrorist attacks.

However, "all party groups are less likely now than a year ago to favor a more active government role," Gallup finds, with the largest shift in opinion happening among independents.

In 2020, 56% of independents said they favored a more expansive role for government compared with just 38% now. In fact, independents have reacted so negatively to government action over the last year that fewer independents today support a more active government role today than before the pandemic in 2019, when 45% wanted bigger government.

Asked about the trade-off between taxes and government services, half of Americans say they prefer fewer government services and lower taxes, while only 19% want increased taxes and more services. Twenty-nine percent of survey respondents said taxes and services should remain where they are now.

Majorities of Republicans and independents say they prefer lower taxes and fewer services, while Democrats are split between increasing both (37%) and keeping taxes and services where they are (40%). Nineteen percent of Democrats actually said they want lower taxes and fewer services.

A plurality of 43% of Americans say there is too much government regulation of businesses, which is an increase of 7 percentage points from 2020, when only 36% said there was too much regulation. That change is consistent with the last time the presidency change hands from the Republican Party to the Democrats.

"Spanning the transition from Republican George W. Bush to Democrat Barack Obama between 2008 and 2009, the percentage saying there was too much government regulation also increased seven points, from 38% to 45%," Gallup notes.

"The COVID-19 situation and the Trump administration's response to it in 2020 may have briefly changed Americans' views on the proper government role, but whatever effect it had has now disappeared," Gallup concludes, observing that the reversal in opinions on the role of government may reflect a return to normal attitudes following a time of crisis.

Gallup polls reveal record high support for gay marriage and abortion in US



The American left appears to be winning the culture wars as new opinion polls released by Gallup this week show record high support for gay marriage and the moral acceptability of abortion.

The survey results reflect how Americans are quickly reaching a consensus view on same-sex marriage since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized it in the landmark Obergefell v. Hodges decision, but remain sharply divided by political affiliation on the life issue.

On the gay marriage issue, 70% of Americans now say that marriages between same-sex couples should be recognized by the law as valid, with the same rights as traditional marriages. This is the highest amount of support shown for same-sex marriage since Gallup began polling the issue in 1996. Since the U.S. Supreme Court legalized the practice in 2015, overall support for it has increased by about 10%.

Notably, for the first time a majority of Republicans (55%) say they support same-sex marriage, which lines up with recent trends in the party. Former Republican President Donald Trump was the first person elected to that office who openly supported gay marriage before becoming president. Trump's ambassador to Germany Richard Grenell, an openly gay man, spearheaded an initiative in 2019 to decriminalize homosexuality globally. In the last year of his administration, Trump named Grenell acting director of national intelligence, making him the first president to appoint an openly gay person to a Cabinet-level position.

"Once opponents of legalization, Republicans have mostly come to back it. Court and legislative challenges to the legal status of same-sex marriage have simmered down since the Supreme Court issued its decision," Justin McCarthy wrote for Gallup.

The abortion issue remains sharply divisive, but a record high of 47% of Americans now say it is morally acceptable, compared to 46% who believe killing unborn children in the womb is morally wrong.

Democrats and political independents are most likely to say abortion is morally acceptable: 64% of Democrats, 51% of independents and 26% of Republicans currently subscribe to that view.

The survey found that Americans are nearly evenly divided over whether they identify as "pro-life" (47%) or "pro-choice" (49%). Unsurprisingly, Republicans strongly identify as pro-life (74%) while Democrats say they are pro-choice (70%). A majority of independents (53%) say they are pro-choice.

By gender, most women continue to identify as pro-choice (52%) while men are more likely to say they are pro-life (50%). Americans between ages 18 and 54 lean pro-choice while older Americans lean pro-life.

A very small minority of Americans (19%) believe abortion should be "illegal in all circumstances." A plurality of those surveyed (48%) favor restrictions on abortion but 32% say abortion should be legal "under any circumstances."

"The nearly one-third of U.S. adults who support fully legal abortions is the highest such percentage since the early to mid-1990s, when it was consistently at that level," Megan Brenan noted for Gallup.

These changing attitudes show how the battlefields of the culture wars are shifting. While there are ongoing legal challenges to abortion and the Supreme Court is set to consider a case that could result in the first major rollback of abortion rights since Roe v. Wade, Republicans have largely given up fighting same-sex marriage and are moving on to fight Big Tech censorship, critical race theory, and transgender ideology in schools and sports.