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Gun Rights Outweigh Gun Control In New Pew Survey

Crimefree

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Gun Rights Outweigh Gun Control In New Pew Survey
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Gun Rights Outweigh Gun Control In New Pew Survey : The Two-Way : NPR

For the first time in at least 20 years, significantly more Americans say it's more important to protect the right to own guns than to control gun ownership, according to the Pew Research Center.


The survey found that more than half of Americans (52 percent) sided with gun rights compared with the 46 percent who favored gun control.


The findings represent the continuation of a shift that was only briefly interrupted by the Newtown, Conn., school shootings in 2012.

In April 2007, the Pew survey found only 32 percent of Americans said it was more important to protect the right to own guns, while 60 percent said it was more important to control gun ownership.


Pew says its survey, conducted during the first week of this month, also found that well over half of Americans said that owning a gun protects people from crime.

The survey.
Growing Public Support for Gun Rights | Pew Research Center for the People and the Press

It got me thinking while the news is great who is responsible for this change? Can anyone give some definitive ideas as to who has been making an effort to change Americans attitude towards rights instead of the usual and useless guns?

Is the change in attitude good news?
Can we keep it up?
Any plans to keep it up?
 

Ferguson. If Sharpton et. al. can keep the frenzy whipped up, more people will come down on the 2nd amendment side.
 
humbolt said:
Ferguson. If Sharpton et. al. can keep the frenzy whipped up, more people will come down on the 2nd amendment side.
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Tell me more please. Any links?
 
CRUE CAB said:
Just watch gun sales over the last few years. And civil unrest is one of the driving factors.
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Ahh!! but guns sales don't translate to anything useful.
 

The change in attitude is certainly good news. Becoming a gun owner and defender of gun owners' rights is what led me to realize how important all of our rights are, even those which don't apply to me. The more people we get prioritizing freedom over personal convictions the better.
 

Personally I think this is wonderful news and shows some hope of maturity in the approach to winning this fight which was why I wanted to see if it had some source.

Two things caught my attention

The change in direction of selling guns to appreciation and VALUE of rights

The belief and assurance it is safer to own a firearm to defend against crime.

Both these are vital to winning because nobody is going to give his life to protecting a gun. People go to war over rights.

Nobody is going to endanger themselves deliberately and increase risk to criminal attack IF and only IF they know that this is what they would be doing.

Firearm owners were already beginning to think registration may not be a bad idea or background checks may make them safer. You only have to look at how many gun grabbers own guns to see that ownership is not the answer. Appreciation and value of rights and safety is. People vote on that.
 
I think it is mainly the spread of "shall issue" CCW to most of the states of the union.


Now you might say 'well that's only a few million people'.... but think about all the people that KNOW those people. Consider that they all have clean records, and have to keep it that way. They make good "gun rights ambassadors".

Jeff brings up guns, says he doesn't like them, to Ron. He's known Ron for a couple years now and thinks Ron is a sensible, low-key sort of fellow... and is surprised when Ron admits he has a CCW and carries a gun. Jeff is forced to re-evaluate his preconceptions of what a "gun nut" is, looks like, acts like... and after talking to Ron a bit he sees the sense of Ron's viewpoint and maybe rethinks his own.

Given that Ron probably knows and influences somewhere between 30 and 150 people to some degree... you see where I'm going here.
 
I think the swing away from big government liberalism is more wide spread then just what we saw in the 2014 elections. The people are starting to wake up and realize that rights and freedoms are better than the Nanny State and government controlled privileges.
 

I do see where you are going and the news coverage and discussion of CCW must have some influence. You are right I'll expand and say this appears to be a grass-roots effort that has no coordination from firearm organisations who traditionally will only promote guns, sports, training, gun safety, services, events.... It is not even vaguely possible any of them had anything to do with this. That was my feeling but I wanted to be sure.
 



From personal anecdotal experience, I think there's a lot of people who have been given a positive view of guns/gun owners/ccw by a CCWer they respect, who even though they do not themselves own a gun or want a CCW at this time, think to themselves: "It'd be nice to have that option if I ever feel like I need it."
 

Another thing the CCW movement has done is to get women involved in gun ownership, you would be surprised at the number of women that have a CCW permit these days. This is no longer a just a manly thing to own a gun.
 
blaxshep said:
Another thing the CCW movement has done is to get women involved in gun ownership, you would be surprised at the number of women that have a CCW permit these days. This is no longer a just a manly thing to own a gun.
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Hell yes. Women like to know they can protect themselves, and once they've tasted that right, they do NOT want to give it up.
 
Goshin said:
Hell yes. Women like to know they can protect themselves, and once they've tasted that right, they do NOT want to give it up.
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But what about the rights of Rapists? .... they could get shot! It's not safe.
 

My dad is paranoid of guns, he refuses to shoot guns whenever we go up to our uncle's house in Michigan (far and few unfortunately for me). He would love to ban guns I know him.

He always talks about loving me and I'm bright and I can change the world and blah blah blah.

Can't wait to greet him a decade from now with a beautiful G37 on my hip. :lamo It's going to be epic, hopefully he'll re-evaluate.

Too bad when I spoke to him he simply said "Oh god you're not going to be one of those gun nuts when you get older are you?"

"You're damn right I will dad!"
 




Um. If you're looking to persuade rather then simply blow his mind, that might not be the best way to go about it.


Not my bidness, jus' sayin'.
 
Goshin said:
Um. If you're looking to persuade rather then simply blow his mind, that might not be the best way to go about it.


Not my bidness, jus' sayin'.
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Maybe not, either way, I will be exercising my rights when I reach the age. Whether I gain his support on it or not.

My mom is OK with it, hell she grew up around guns and loves to shoot herself.

It's just my dad. *shrug*

Not sure why, it seems to just be a deep paranoia of guns, may be incurable. It's a shame, but, oh well.
 
Seems to me that 2A attitudes have been bouncing around for several years. No doubt hysteria after events such as Ferguson and Sandy Hook cause abrupt shifts in the trend.
 
Crimefree said:
Tell me more please. Any links?
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Heh. Not right this second, but I did read a few weeks ago that gun sales in the St. Louis area went through the roof. I can look. I'm certain I can find it.
 

Most notable about that Pew survey is that black support has almost doubled in just a few years. Perhaps they have figured out that the govt wont be there to protect them when they most need it. I'd like to see more CCW's in all places, but it would do the most good in black neighborhoods.
 

Ironic, when you consider that the first gun control laws—in fact nearly all gun control laws in this nation up to 1934—were specifically aimed at blacks, to protect the safety of Ku Klux Klan members and others who preyed on them. Gun control laws have always been there to protect criminals and tyrants from their intended victims, and never the other way around. Odd that it has taken the members of this particular demographic so long to figure this out.
 

Indeed, the racism gun laws including restrictions on ownership and "saturday night specials" is a dark chapter in US history. My hope is that there is more empowerment within that community, instead of relying on govt as their guardians and providers. Only time will tell.
 
humbolt said:
I can spend a lot of time here right now, but just google spike in gun sales in St. Louis, and enjoy.
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People buy guns in "spikes" out of fear not enlightenment. You may want to tell firearm organisations that. Just becasue they own a gun does not mean they support gun ownership or reject more strict laws. That much is obvious and that attitude is responsible for the current position where there is no answer to gun control.
 
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