Fifty-two percent of Americans now say it is more important to protect the right of Americans to own guns, the highest in decades.
That compares to the 46 percent who say it is more important to control gun ownership, according to a Pew Research survey.
This is a noticeable shift from January of 2013, when support for gun rights was just 45 percent.
Support for prioritizing gun control has also fallen, from 51 to 46 percent, the survey found.
The reason behind the change in support may be that nearly six-in-ten Americans now believe gun ownership does more to protect people from crime, compared to nearly 40 percent who say it does more to endanger personal safety.
Support for gun ownership remains divided down racial lines. Currently, 54 percent of adults identifying themselves as black say gun ownership does more bad than good, nearly double (29 percent) how many said this in December 2012.
However, 62 percent of whites view guns as more for protection rather than harm, a number up eight percentage points from two years ago.
Seventy-six percent of Republicans now support protecting gun ownership rights, compared to 28 percent of Democrats.
The phone survey of 1,507 adults was done Dec. 3-7 with margin of sampling error of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.
