One Year After Newtown, Americans Not Interested in Gun Control

December 14 is the anniversary
of the
horrendous Newtown shooting, but despite the best
efforts of opportunistic politicians, Americans show little
sympathy for proposals to tighten restrictions on guns. In fact,
firearms don’t even appear on their list of concerns when asked
what worries them by Reason-Rupe
pollsters, although big government and politicians do.
And when asked directly about tightening gun laws, people say that
would have no impact on criminals’ access to guns—a logical
position to take, since nothing that’s been proposed so far would
have prevented Newtown shooter Adam Lanza from doing what he
did.

Americans worry about a lot of things in an age of sluggish
economic “recovery” and government incompetence put on display like
an object lesson in stupid policy, poorly enacted. Asked an
open-ended question about the “biggest problem facing the country
today,” people volunteered jobs/wages, worries about Congress, and
social disunity, and nervousness over big government and the Obama
administration. Two percent each even said that immigration and
Republicans under the bed keep them awake at night. Any
volunteeered concerns about guns in their neighbors’ closets came
in at too low a level to be recorded.

Which is not shocking at a time when homicides committed with
firearms have been on a
long-term downward trend, despite all-too-terrible incidents
like Newtown.

Maybe that’s because people understand that restrictive laws
aren’t the answer to every horrible headline.
Sixty-three percent of poll respondents told us that tighter
gun restrictions aren’t going to stand between criminals and access
to firearms. They certainly wouldn’t have stopped Lanza, who used
guns purchased by his mother, a squeaky clean citizen who bought
her guns legally after
passing background checks. And in case there are any questions
about the past year’s most popular gun to hate, Greg Ridgeway, the
Deputy Director of the National Institute of Justice, says that
bans on “assault weapon” and “high-capacity magazines” are
totally pointless. Add in the fact that 80 percent of criminals
get their guns from “family, friends, a street buy, or an illegal
source” according to the Bureau of Justice
Statistics, and it’s clear that Americans display more wisdom
than the average politican.

It’s not just the pool of folks answering Reason-Rupe’s
questions, either. An
AP poll also conducted as the Newtown anniversary approaches
found declining support for tightened gun restrictions, with half
of respondents flat-out saying “laws limiting gun ownership
infringe on the public’s right to bear arms.”

What might have helped prevent the Newtown shooting? A plurality
(27 percent) favors better “mental
health services,” which has evolved into something of a default
policy go-to in recent months for people looking for solutions.
Mental health services might or might not help, depending on what
people mean by “better” (pre-emptive
detention for folks with the blues?). And while Adam Lanza had
known mental health problems,
nobody saw any warning signs to indicate he was about to go off
the deep end.

Still, people do want to “do something,” which might explain why
Americans tell Reason-Rupe they’re even willing to attempt the
objectively unwise (arm TSA agents so they have something to wave
around while they’re groping you) and the overtly impossible (ban
the 3D printing of guns). Anybody concerned that air travel is too
popular might find giving TSA agents the arms to back their attitudes is an
excellent way to trim the number of trips. And 3D printing of
firearms was
explicitly designed to be beyond the reach of goverment
officials.

The Newtown shooting was a horrible crime. It was also a
thankfully rare incident in an era of declining gun-related
homicides, despite the headlines. One year later, Americans seem to
understand that, and to largely reject authoritarian, knee-jerk
responses.