Nearly three-fourths of registered voters in gun-owning households support a ban on bump stocks, the devices gunman Stephen Paddock used to make his semiautomatic rifle fire like a machine gun, according to a Politico/Morning Consult poll conducted the week after the Las Vegas shooting. That’s five percentage points less than the share of all registered voters, of both parties, who say they back a ban.
The online survey of nearly 2,000 voters conducted from October 5 to 9 also found strong support for comprehensive background checks on gun purchases. It found that gun owners and non-gun owners alike favored limiting gun access for the dangerously mentally ill.
Support for the deregulation of silencers, or suppressors, which is one of the NRA’s top legislative priorities in Congress, is weak among all groups of respondents. Sixty-five percent of registered voters oppose removing the devices from federal regulation. Perhaps more surprising: 64 percent of people who live in gun-owning households also oppose it.
Support for reforms like universal background checks, safe-storage requirements, and gun-ownership restrictions for people who appear on terror watch lists was high among gun owners, non-gun owners, and registered voters of from both sides of the political spectrum.
Reforms that most gun-violence-prevention organizations have stopped pushing showed surprisingly strong overall support among registered voters and gun owners, including requiring a three-day waiting period on gun purchases (77 percent of voters, 67 percent of gun owners), a one-gun-a-month buying limit (69 percent, 60 percent), and the creation of a national database that contains information about each gun sale (57 percent, 68 percent).
