Friday, October 12, 2007

Historical Comparisons in A Gallup Poll

Wow, two posts in one day--must be a slow day at work. Anyway, I checked out a couple of blogs this morning and noticed some good news from the wonderful people of Gallup Polls. Arms and the Law mentioned that fewer Americans support gun control after 9/11. Call Me Ahab discusses the numbers in more detail. And they are good news for us--the Brady Bunch must be crying in their corn flakes.

I took a closer look at some comparisons with past and present support for handgun limitations(here's the link and scroll down to Number 21 about 2/3s of the way down the page). There's something that jarred me.

Today, 68% of the people believe there should not be a law limiting handgun possession to police and other authorized people. That leaves 30% of Americans (with 2% on the fence) that would infringe on our rights. Surprisingly, in 1959 the numbers were almost exactly reversed; 36% of the people thought that handgun ownership should not be limited to police and other people while 60% would ban handguns for the average citizen.

In fact, since 1959 public support for handgun ownership is the highest its ever been tracked by Gallup. You could've knocked me over with a feather.

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