Most Americans want strong or moderate gun regulations

Washington D.C., May 26, 2022 - A new Ipsos poll, fielded in the wake of the recent mass shooting at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, finds that two-thirds of Americans believe gun ownership should have at least moderate regulations or restrictions. Just one in three Americans are confident that their elected representatives will do something this year to strengthen gun laws in the United States. 

Detailed Findings

Three in four (73%) Americans agree that America has more mass shootings than any other developed country and 65% agree that there are so many because of how easy it is to get guns. Sixty-six percent of Americans believe there should be at least moderate regulations or restrictions on gun ownership, including 46% who say the regulations and restrictions should be strong. Just 6% believe there should be none or very few. Strong to moderate regulations receive majority bipartisan support, with 53% of Republicans and 82% of Democrats agreeing.

More specifically, most Americans support laws such as those: allowing law-abiding citizens to get a permit to carry a concealed weapon (69%); requiring background checks before allowing the sale of firearms (84%); red flag laws allowing police to confiscate guns from people courts say are dangerous (70%). In addition, three-quarters (74%) of Americans support laws limiting the sale of automatic weapons, 72% support raising the legal age to buy a gun from 18 to 21, and 77% oppose allowing any adult to purchase firearms without a background check or waiting period. Just 45% of Americans support arming elementary school teachers/staff with guns.

Consequently, 79% of Americans say they are more likely to support a candidate who promotes passing background checks and red flag laws for all new gun purchases. Nevertheless, 51% of Americans also agree that any new gun control laws would eventually result in the government trying to take everyone’s guns, and 61% say they are more likely to support a candidate who supports Americans’ 2^nd Amendment right to own firearms. Ultimately, 68% of Americans are more likely to back a political candidate who supports the right to own firearms and supports laws limiting easy access to guns.

Ultimately though, only a third of Americans (35%) are confident that their elected officials will do something to strengthen gun laws in the U.S. this year.

For more details, you may visit Reuters' site here.

About the Study

These are some of the findings of an Ipsos poll conducted on May 25, 2022 for Thomson Reuters. For this survey, a sample of 940 Americans age 18+ from the continental U.S., Alaska, and Hawaii were interviewed online in English. The sample includes 305 Democrats, 278 Republicans, and 357 independents. Weighting was then employed to balance demographics to ensure that the sample's composition reflects that of the adult population according to Census data and to provide results intended to approximate the sample universe. The precision of Ipsos online polls is measured using a credibility interval. In this case, the poll is accurate to within ± 3.9 percentage points, 19 times out of 20, had all Americans been polled. The credibility interval will be wider among subsets of the population. All sample surveys and polls may be subject to other sources of error, including but not limited to coverage error and measurement error. The poll also has a credibility interval of ± 6.9 percentage points for Democrats, ± 7.2 percentage points for Republicans, and ± 6.4 percentage points for independents.  

For more information on this news release, please contact:

Chris Jackson
Senior Vice President, US
Public Affairs
+1 202 420-2025
[email protected]

Annaleise Lohr
Director, US
Public Affairs
[email protected]

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