I'm an American, but I swear sometimes I just don't "get" America.....

[marmar]

Americans’ support for banning assault weapons, once near-universal, is now at a record low, a new survey shows.

President Barack Obama renewed his call for such a ban earlier this month, saying in a speech that the U.S. needs “to make it harder for people to buy powerful assault weapons like the ones that were used in San Bernardino.”

But in a Washington Post/ABC News poll released Wednesday morning, just 45 percent want to ban the weapons, down from 80 percent in 1994.

Support for such a ban has decreased in the past two decades, though a majority still backed one as recently as two years ago.

“The increase in opposition to banning assault weapons since 2013 peaks in some groups -- up 18 points among strong conservatives, 17 points among higher-income earners and 16 points in the generally more liberal Northeast. But it’s a broadly based trend,” pollster Gary Langer noted. ..................(more)

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/assault-weapons-ban-poll_56715c23e4b0dfd4bcbff62e

[mwrguy]

1. America is a soup sandwich

[yeoman6987]

21. Yeah sure 80 percent in 1994.

Then gave the entire congress to republicans after that vote. Something doesn't fit.

[jwirr]

31. After getting raygun elected using fear, hate and greed. We

should not be a bit surprised.

The problem is how to turn them off. Every time anything happens they add more to the message.

[yeoman6987]

36. Then it's our message that is not resonating with people.

Perhaps that's where the start needs to be. Our message. Cuz nothing else is working.

[jwirr]

38. I agree. How to do that with corporations, religion and the

media against us is a real problem. We do still have the internet.....

[yeoman6987]

40. Which is the future

Majority of Americans get everything from the Internet. So maybe we are in a weird transition period and things will begin to change.

[jwirr]

41. Hope so. And another reason we need to fight for net

neutrality.

[valerief]

2. You know what else decreased in the last two decades? Ownership of mass media.

[RKP5637]

4. Propaganda in this country manipulated and controlled by the few has to

be in the tops. Joseph Goebbels would have loved it. It's become so orchestrated and lemmings are all over the place.

[jwirr]

33. And if it is not political propaganda then it is dumbing down

the young. Disney and the cartoons.

[Go Vols]

15. Tis fucked up

[PufPuf23]

20. Thank you for the chart.

Our government, courts, and politicians have failed to allow such consolidation.

We cannot have a true nor functioning Democratic Republic with such media consolidation.

I am for a major move to break up media monopolies (and for assault weapon bans).

[RKP5637]

3. American has a lot of issues going on. Hard to tell where the country is headed. I find it pretty

uncomfortable these days.

[truebluegreen]

5. "A Republic, if you can keep it...."

We didn't.

[Waldorf]

6. There was a reason the original ban was allowed to expire. If you look at the FBI data

rifles are used in a very small amount of murders. That's all rifles, ie: bolt action, rimfires, single shots and the scary black rifle (which is not an assault weapon but a semi-auto rifle). If you look at this FBI chart shotguns are used more than rifles. Even knives are used 5x more than rifles.

https://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2013/crime-in-the-u.s.-2013/offenses-known-to-law-enforcement/expanded-homicide/expanded_homicide_data_table_8_murder_victims_by_weapon_2009-2013.xls

[Hoyt]

8. Good, let's ban semiautomatic pistols and ARs.

[Waldorf]

10. Hell, why stop there. Throw in knives, since they killed 5x more people than rifles.

[Hoyt]

11. Guns will he plenty, no one can justify them for any sane reason.

[Waldorf]

13. The 80-100 million gun owners, who's firearms are not used in a crime 99.9 percent of the

time, disagree with you.

[Hoyt]

14. Actually many of those guns have been used in crimes, whether stolen, sold, given to a kid like

former NBA president's kid, brought up in gun culture, who shot a motorist in road rage incident. Gun owners have contributed to killings, shootings, intimidation, and degradation of our society, all because they can't sleep at night or go to the grocery store without a gun in their pants.

And don't kid yourself, Zman was a responsible gun owners according to you guys before he shot an innocent teen. Far too many gunners think he was still responsible after murdering the unarmed teen.

I prefer the 200+M who don't need guns to thrive.

[Waldorf]

23. I guess those would be the 0.1%. As a gunowner I sleep happily at night. Not because I'm

snuggled up with a firearm (they are in the safes) but because I'm tired.

Since Zman (as you call him) was not convicted of a crime, and the DOJ wouldn't even file civil charges I would say he was a responsible gun owner.

[Hoyt]

26. Most gunners supported Zman. Not at all surprised you do too.

[Waldorf]

29. Actually I think he is an ass.

[Hoyt]

32. Most gunners were relieved, they could see themselves pulling a Zimmerman.

[X_Digger]

7. You know why?

"The weapons' menacing looks, coupled with the public's confusion over fully automatic machine guns versus semi-automatic assault weapons--anything that looks like a machine gun is assumed to be a machine gun can only increase the chance of public support for restrictions on these weapons."

Josh Sugarman, VPC (Now the Brady bunch.)

When your support depends on keeping people confused, yer doin it rong.

[Hoyt]

9. When you support lethal weapons and the arming up if America, you are

Keep one or two at home for hunting and home defense. Any other reason is questionable, especially public toting.

[X_Digger]

12. You sure, Hoyt? They might be used against your ex-co-workers..

http://www.democraticunderground.com/?com=view_post&forum=1172&pid=45338

As a former robber, I locked the door to keep people out, especially police.

[Hoyt]

16. There you go again, failing to read in context. If you are going to memorize my words,

at remember the context. In this case, you gungeoneers were foaming at the mouth to add another erroneous rule-of-thumb to your list of reasons to shoot people and cheer.

[X_Digger]

17. Feel free to *splutter* *harumph* and *cough* all you want.

You're not fooling anyone here, Hoyt.

I hope you like your words, I'll be sure to remind you of them when I see you sticking up for your ex-co-workers.

[Hoyt]

22. You need to stop pointing at each word when you read. A common trait of those

obsessed with guns.

[pintobean]

28. No wonder he wants to ban guns.

I guess he got out of the business because it was too dangerous. Remove the danger, and it's a lucrative business.

[IsItJustMe]

18. There are lies, damn lies and then there are polls

Guit believing in polls. PERIOD. Who conducted it? How was it conducted? Who was polled?

Many polls today are dishonest and are simply used as propaganda instruments. Even a honest poll can easily be off as much as 3 to 4 % one way or the other. That means that they could be wrong by as much as 8%.

Good honest polls can be conducted, but they need to have a very large sampling size to be accurate. And if you want to know if a poll is honest, you almost have to be a statistician to know for sure. Just me humble opinion.

[MisterP]

19. we've gone from thinking of ourselves as "temporarily inconvenienced millionaires"

to "Good Guys With a Gun-in-waiting" like the Luby's survivor who testified about the Christmas Story fantasy she'd had

[LittleBlue]

24. Americans aren't buying what the NY Times is selling

We've seen a full-court press on this since San Bernardino. MSNBC had a gun control advocate on during the actual shootout, before the bodies were even cold.

The polls consistently show Americans are in favor of reasonable gun control. Not blanket bans.

So keep opposing voters and see how that goes.

[TransitJohn]

25. There's not much to get,

we've been subject to unrelenting psyops and propaganda for decades that the 2nd Amendment was about an individual right to arms, and it influenced opinion.

[Humanist_Activist]

27. I really don't understand this American fetishization of guns, personally...

perhaps I absorbed too much foreign media lately, but it just seems so alien that people are so fearful of those around them that they think that carrying a gun around is a good idea.

[maxsolomon]

30. Bingo

Essentially, it's a personal Arms Race. You WANT (aka "need&quot a gun because you believe everyone else has one.

The more guns there are, the greater the chance of a fuck up, even if the per-capita rate of fuck ups declines.

And no gun owner ever thinks they're going to be the fuck up, but someone is, inevitably. And it's not those of us without guns.

[Humanist_Activist]

34. The thing is that, according to the data out there, its more dangerous to own a gun than not to...

not even factoring in carrying the damn thing around, you are more likely to be a victim of a homicide or suicide with that gun that's in your house than using it for defense against strangers trying to break in or something.

[maxsolomon]

35. those are all in my "fuck ups" category

as well as getting the thing stolen and it entering the black market.

I'm very inclusive!

[Humanist_Activist]

39. That is a factor along with unregistered, loophole purchases of mostly handguns...

the thing is that gunowners are a minority, thankfully. Hopefully we can have that number shrink over time.

[spanone]

37. the NRA is a successful lobby organization. they hold our legislators hostage.