Digging into a new Gallup survey on firearms ownership and gun laws strongly reinforces the long-held notion that Democrats are “the party of gun control” and that people who do not own guns are much more interested in restrictions than gun owners and those who identify as Republicans.
While the report from Gallup was headlined “Support for Stricter U.S. Gun Laws at Lowest Level Since 2016,” the survey results revealed far more about the split between Democrats and Republicans on the subject of guns.
As reported by Newsmax, “Eighty-five percent of Democrats surveyed still want more restrictions on firearms, although that is down from 90% in 2015. Republican support for more gun control has dropped 14% in the past year to 22%, its lowest in 20 years, according to the Gallup poll.”
More than a dozen years ago, writing in tandem with Alan Gottlieb, this correspondent authored a book titled “These Dogs Don’t Hunt: The Democrats’ War on Guns.” If the situation has changed at all, it has been for the worse.
Among the key findings in the Gallup survey was this revelation: “Majorities of women, Democrats, independents, those who do not own guns, residents of the Eastern and Western U.S., and city and suburban residents all support stricter gun laws.”
This makes a report from Florida even more alarming for its irony. The Miami Herald reported on the arrest of a “registered Democrat” for having allegedly threatened to shoot Gov. Ron DeSantis, and Republican Senators Rick Scott and Marco Rubio. She reportedly sent a twitter message declaring “DeSantis, Rick Scott and Marco Rubio are looting my state. Imma shoot them.”
The newspaper referred to an arrest affidavit in which the suspect admitted making the post, but she claims it was “a joke.”
Last year, former Georgia Democratic congressional candidate Kellie Lynn Collins pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in the shooting death of her husband, Curt Cain in 2018. She dropped out of the race for the 10th Congressional District, and ended up being sentenced to 30 years in prison.
And who can forget former California State Senator Leland Yee, the perennial anti-gunner who was sentenced to five years in prison for his role in a gun running scheme? Yee was released on June 26 of this year. Democrat Yee had supported gun control efforts in Sacramento but got involved in the attempt to bring in automatic weapons and rocket launchers from the Philippines. There was no small irony in the fact that Yee in 2006 was listed on the Brady Campaign’s “Gun Violence Prevention Honor Roll.” At trial, the judge ripped Yee for hypocrisy and called his actions “vile.”
As noted above, Republicans, conversely are far less supportive of stricter gun laws, but the fact that 22 percent of acknowledged GOP voters still support stricter gun laws is alarming to a number of gun rights activists.
With career anti-gun Democrat Joe Biden apparently heading to the White House, the critical nature of Georgia’s special Jan. 5 election for the two U.S. Senate seats in that state becomes clear. Republicans must retain control of the Senate in order to block Biden’s gun control agenda, which Gottlieb and other Second Amendment advocates have declared “extreme.”
More than a year ago, Rasmussen Reports discovered just how visceral the divide can get when it learned “a sizeable number of Democrats” view the National Rifle Association as a “terrorist group and believe it should be against the law for Americans to belong to a pro-gun rights organization like the NRA.”
“One-out-of-three Likely Democratic Voters (32%) favor declaring the gun rights group a terrorist organization in the community where they live,” Rasmussen reported back on Sept. 9, 2019.
When Quinnipiac University reported in May 2019 that a majority of voters support stricter gun laws, it noted, “Republicans, gun owners and voters in households where there is a gun are the only listed groups opposed.”
When Quinnipiac’s poll asked about banning so-called “assault weapons,” again the university reported, “Republicans and gun owners are the only listed groups opposed, while voters in gun households are divided.”
Perhaps one reason for this divisiveness is media bias. Gottlieb noted that rarely does the establishment press report positive activities regarding gun rights or the organizations protecting those rights. For example, when the Second Amendment Foundation and other gun rights groups including the Firearms Policy Coalition recently stepped up their legal challenges of concealed carry restrictions in three states, the press—with the exception of AmmoLand and a few other pro-rights news organs—gave it a dismissive yawn.
“The mainstream establishment media ignores this,” he said, “just like they ignore our court victories and lawsuits challenging extremist gun control laws.”
The NSSF report and successful gun rights activities by any pro-Second Amendment organization generally were ignored.
Gottlieb founded SAF more than 40 years ago and serves as its executive vice president. Every time his group files a lawsuit, SAF sends alerts to hundreds of journalists and publications across the country. It’s not as if the press is oblivious to the legal wrangling, he observed. The media just doesn’t care to look at gun law litigation, except, perhaps, when a gun control law is upheld.
Presently, national attention is focused on the upcoming Georgia runoff election. Republican Senators David Perdue and Kelly Loeffler are being challenged by Democrats Jon Ossoff and Raphael Warnock. Democrats are pulling out all stops in their effort to flip both Georgia seats. If that happens, the Senate would wind up with a 50-50 split, with tie votes decided by Kamala Harris, if she becomes the vice president.
