A majority of Americans want tougher gun control laws, a poll released Monday showed.
According to a new Gallup survey on the issue, 55% of adults nationwide want stricter regulations when it comes to the sale of guns — an increase of eight percentage points since the agency’s 2014 poll.
By comparison, only 33% of those polled said they felt current gun sale regulations should remain the same and just 11% said they would want gun sales laws to be less strict.
The increased desire for stricter laws was expressed both by gun owners and by those who do not own guns, the poll showed.
According to the poll, 36% of gun owners surveyed wanted stricter gun control laws, compared to 30% who said so in the prior year’s survey.
Meanwhile, 64% of those polled who do not own guns said they wanted tougher laws, compared to 57% who said so last year.
At the same time, the poll found that self-identified Republicans were one of the few groups of people surveyed who said they didn’t want tougher gun laws, with only 27% saying they would want stricter laws. In the 2014 survey, 29% of self-identified Republicans said they wanted stricter laws.
The latest poll showed that 77% of self-identified Democrats said they wanted stricter gun control laws, compared to 71% who said so in 2014.
A comprehensive handgun ban, however, wasn’t favored by many in any party, with only 27% of those polled saying they would favor banning handguns for civilians. By comparison 72% of those polled said there should not be a ban.
The poll was administered Oct. 7 to Oct. 11 — just a week after a gunman shot dead nine people at Umpqua Community College in Oregon.
