Americans like their guns – and believe that they should have a right to own them.
Nearly two in three registered voters believe it’s a bad idea for gun ownership to be restricted to government officials like the police and military, according to a new study by Rasmussen Reports.
Having the right to gun ownership is even more important to those not affiliated with the Republican or Democratic parties, as 71 percent of voters who do not identify with either party believe that it would be bad if only government officials were allowed to own guns.
The study also showed that men are more likely than women to oppose the government restricting guns to just police officers and members of the military, 72 percent to 57 percent. Almost three times as many women were unsure whether gun ownership should stay exclusively with the government, however.
The number of Americans who believe that restricting guns to law enforcement agencies and the military is a bad idea also increases with age. Only 59 percent of voters aged 18-39 believe that the government shouldn’t be the only ones allowed to own a gun, compared to 65 percent of 40-64 year olds and 71 percent of senior citizens.
These findings are telling considering the various attempts that liberal governors have made nationwide to severely limit what types of guns Americans can own.
On Thursday, Maryland Gov. Martin O’Malley just signed a gun control measure into law that bans the sale of assault weapons and sets new permit requirements for handgun owners in the state. Already the NRA has announced that they plan to challenge the law, claiming that it violates their Second Amendment rights.
New York, Colorado and Connecticut have also passed similar laws limiting gun ownership in the past few months.
Rasmussen Reports interviewed 1,000 likely voters from May 13-14, 2013. The margin of error for the study was +/- 3 percentage points with a 95 percent level of confidence.
