Minority Rules On Gun Control

A large majority of Americans, both Democrats and Republicans, support stricter gun control, but a vociferous minority that favors no gun control at all is more willing to take action based on its agenda, and always gets its way. Eighty-eight percent of Americans back the idea that all gun purchases should require a background check. About the same number support background checks for private sales including gun shows. Among Republicans, the support is 77 percent. A federal ban on assault weapons, a term with no fixed legal definition but which would clearly include the weapons used in the recent Florida high school massacre and the mass killing in Las Vegas, is favored by a majority in both parties. But these are not effective majorities. A highly organized minority, Second Amendment fundamentalists in the NRA, and an even more extreme group, Gun Owners of America, have dictated the national agenda on this issue. They are willing to accept any level of violence as the cost of unrestricted ownership of guns.