gun range training
(AP Photo/Carlos Osorio)
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By Larry Keane

New polling confirms Americans are increasingly rejecting gun control calls amidst circumstances that have left them feeling exposed to danger and unsafe in their communities. Americans, by the millions, have turned those anxieties into empowerment by purchasing a firearm, exercising their Second Amendment right for protection and rejecting gun control politicians and their schemes.

Follow the Data

Two recent polls show the shift. Gallup pins American support for more gun control at a tick above 50 percent, the lowest mark since 2014. At the same time, Quinnipiac polling pegged the number even lower, showing just 45 percent support stricter gun laws – a drop of nine points since April this year.

Included in the data is that 54 percent of self-described Independents oppose enacting more gun laws. This reflects firearm industry survey data from the past two years showing first-time buyers broke the molds of traditional gun owners. That number reached more than 8.4 million in 2020. That also reflected hikes in African-American, Hispanic-American and Asian-American gun buyers. More than 3.2 million Americans bought their first firearm within the first six months of 2021.

That shift isn’t in the shadows either. ABC’s The View guest host Sherri Shephard, defied the routine call for increased gun control and admitted she purchased a gun. “I felt very empowered when I bought this gun. I took lessons, I took the test, I go to the range with my girlfriends like every other week, and it just makes me feel like at least if something happens, I can protect my child.”

Changing Political Calculus

Polls are reflecting a snapshot of how Americans feel about more restrictions on their Second Amendment rights. That sentiment has turned into political action over the past several months. Voters are making their voices heard by elected officials and at the ballot box.

David Chipman
Failed Biden ATF Director nominee David Chipman

The most high-profile example was President Joe Biden’s withdrawal of his nomination of staunch gun control advocate and paid gun control lobbyist David Chipman to lead the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF). Chipman’s abbreviated U.S. Senate confirmation hearing was a disaster.

He was unable to garner the support of even all Senate Democrats or Sen. Angus King (I-Maine), or from any Second Amendment-supporting Republican. Chipman blamed everyone but himself for his failure to secure confirmation and still hasn’t recognized that Americans just don’t agree with him on gun control.

Winsome Sears rifle

Another example is Republican Glenn Youngkin’s victory in the Virginia gubernatorial election over staunch gun control advocate and former Democratic Gov. Terry McAuliffe. Also sweeping to victories were Republicans Lieutenant Governor-elect Winsome Sears, who posed with her Modern Sporting Rifle (MSR) in a campaign ad, and Attorney General-elect Jason Miyares. The Virginia House of Delegates turned to a Republican majority after six seats flipped against gun control.

The numbers don’t lie. Americans, in record numbers, are buying guns and learning that the gun control laws aren’t aimed at criminals. They’re aimed at them.

 

Larry Keane is SVP for Government and Public Affairs, Assistant Secretary and General Counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.

 

 

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28 COMMENTS

  1. Winsome Sears posing with a gunm in a campaign add is really something special.
    “I hate gunms vote for me” isnt such a strong platform to run on anymore.

  2. What this tells me is that 8.4 million slow learners were identified in 2020, and more have been so far this year.

  3. ‘Come out of her, my people, lest you partake of her sins and her plagues.’

    Firearms are a big part of the answer. But cities are where all the deranged, drug-addled, marxist mobs are. You may get very, very lucky (like KR), but don’t count on it.

    Get out of cities while you can.

    • “cities are where all the deranged, drug-addled, marxist mobs are”

      sure. they’re also still the center of where all the political, financial, and economic power are. when you abandon them, they’ll just be used against you.

        • sure, just pick up the votes and money and infrastructure and housing and aqueducts and powerlines and ports and highways, and put them somewhere else. easy peasy.

      • Understood. My purpose is to ‘drain’ cities of the god-fearing, hard working people who keep them supplied & functioning.

        I’ll take those good people into my little hamlet all day long & twice on Sundays. Let the cities learn how to survive on the production of poets, performance artists & rioters. Popcorn is ready.

  4. “Americans are increasingly rejecting gun control”

    more accurately they oppose gun control for themselves- they support it for those who they don’t like. remember, it’s the boolsheviks that say “power comes out of the barrel of a gun” – don’t be too quick to celebrate them arming up.

    • Some do, hard to tell what goes on in the minds of people unless they advertise like idiots on social media. With that said the ones I see at the range are more diverse than my workplace and vocally support everyone being armed especially after the riot over a year ago. The sheriff’s of the area (even Albany) have been overwhelmingly supportive of new gun owners and have processed as many permits in a month as they would typically see in a year for almost 2 years now. This is in New York where you need a permission slip just to buy/own/hold a pistol. The sale of rifles and shotguns has been even more brisk (no permit needed……….yet). Do we have antifa types at the SUNY schools absolutely, but we have at least as many Americans that just want the drama to fuck off or find out especially since many of the black community connected it was the white antifa types burning their businesses.

  5. One of our local anti-gun fanatics was attacked 10 days ago. Robbed at gun point, she complied and did not resist and the three guys beat the crap out of her anyway. A person driving by saw what was happening, called 911 and engaged them as soon as he get over there and shot one but missed the other two, they started running as soon as fired the first round. It took the police a little over four minutes to arrive. Cops caught two of them about an hour later, and the other one the next day nursing an infected grazing wound on his left jaw line. She was hospitalized until a few days ago.

    I saw the owner of a local gun store this morning at the diner where I stopped for breakfast. He told me she came in and purchased a Sig P320 and a Benelli M4 Tactical Shotgun and asked where she could sign up for a course that would help her “… put all the bullets in the next son of a bit** “. Her first stop out of the hospital was the gun store.

    • .40 cal Booger,

      I imagine you know the saying that people who support civilian disarmament are Leftists who have not yet been the victim of a violent crime.

      • In this case they are leftists that want to commit violent crimes and wish there to be no more Kyles to stop them.

      • Yep, i’ve heard that. Its true though. Every person I knew of over the years that was anti-gun to some degree that became a victim of violent crime now owns firearms.

        This lady wasn’t a bad person with devil horns and a pitchfork. Heck, I’m not sure she was on the left politically, the gun/2A community tends to lump all that are anti-gun as “leftists” but not all of them are.

        She has been very vocal about her anti-gun stance, fanatical about it, over the years. The gun store she bought her weapons at is one that she has stood in front of many times with others holding signs protesting guns and calling for gun control and jeering people who came in and out of the store.

        She has been very irritating with her anti-gun fanaticism, but overall here locally no one took her seriously except her fellow anti-gun fanatics and although we joked about her sometimes at the range or the gun stores, she was our anti-gun fanatic and part of the community. So like the guy that came to her aid, and repelled her attackers who most likely would have killed her had they been able to continue, just about any of us would have come to her aid in the same situation without any thought of her political leanings.

        But although she has been vary irritating and probably wrote the book on curse words usage in her anti-gun fanaticism, I’m pretty sure she gets the point now. Some people just need to learn the hard way, unfortunately not many of them get to survive the hard way unharmed.

  6. It’s really Simple, without the 2nd, the rest of the amendments of the constitution / bill of rights mean nothing. The 2nd make the rest possible.

    • Hear hear,
      and the peaceful protest and lack of law enforcement is making it stronger.
      ” A well regulated militia (three or more people)
      Being necessary to a free State, “,,,,

  7. Donald Trump Welcomes ‘Nice Young Man’ Kyle Rittenhouse To Mar-A-Lago

    https://www.huffpost.com/entry/donald-trump-kyle-rittenhouse_n_619e0dcfe4b0f398af0cedf0

    Look under the headline, it calls Kyle an “acquitted killer”

    that’s just wrong.

    and in other Kyle news:

    QAnon Followers Turn on Kyle Rittenhouse After He Calls Lin Wood ‘Insane’

    https://www.newsweek.com/qanon-followers-turn-kyle-rittenhouse-after-calls-lin-wood-insane-1652816

    Kyle Rittenhouse Fired Lin Wood Over ‘Insane’ QAnon and Election Fraud Beliefs

    https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/crime/kyle-rittenhouse-fired-lin-wood-over-insane-qanon-and-election-fraud-beliefs/ar-AAR4KmL?ocid=uxbndlbing

    • Kyle’s probably spot on in his assessment of Wood.
      Old Lin don’t appear to be firing on all 8 cylinders.

  8. Until the next horrific mass shooting, when the Karens will shriek that we need to do SOMETHING for the Children and we’ll get knee-jerk gun control (again).

  9. It’s more about the right of the private citizen to use force in self defense than it is about gun rights alone. The gun grabbers don’t want you splitting a home invader’s skull with a baseball bat or running down a carjacker with your vehicle any more than they want you shooting him. You are supposed to risk your own life to avoid injury to the criminal victimizing you.

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