Newswise — Although strongly protective of gun rights in general, most Tennessee voters favor requiring background checks for gun sales among private individuals and at gun shows and support laws to prevent the mentally ill from buying guns, according to the latest MTSU Poll.
Two other measures – banning assault-style weapons and setting up a federal database to track all gun sales – draw considerably less support, especially among gun rights supporters.
“Tennesseans generally favor preserving access to guns, and pretty passionately so,” said Ken Blake, director of the poll at Middle Tennessee State University. “But there appears to be some common ground between gun rights supporters and gun control supporters when it comes to regulating private and gun show sales and sales to the mentally ill.”
The poll randomly surveyed 603 registered voters statewide by telephone Oct. 25-27 and has an error margin of 4 percentage points.
Key findings about attitudes toward firearms among the state’s voters
• Most think it is more important to “protect the right to own guns” (69 percent) than to “control gun ownership” (23 percent). The rest don’t know or declined to answer.• These attitudes run “hot” emotionally, with 92 percent of gun rights supporters saying they feel “strongly” about their view, and 86 percent of gun control supporters saying they feel “strongly” about their view.• Most Tennessee voters think gun ownership does more to “protect people from becoming victims of crime” (63 percent) than to “put people’s safety at risk” (24 percent).• But support runs high for passing “laws to prevent people with mental illness from purchasing guns” (85 percent in favor) and for “making private gun sales and sales at gun shows subject to background checks” (83 percent in favor).
View an interactive graphic with a breakdown of the results here.
Solid majorities of both gun rights and gun control supporters favor regulating private and gun show sales and preventing sales to the mentally ill. Specifically, 78 percent of gun rights supporters, and 96 percent of gun control supporters, favor regulating gun sales among private individuals and at gun shows.
Similarly, 84 percent of gun rights supporters, and 90 percent of gun control supporters favor laws preventing gun sales to the mentally ill.
The two groups diverge, though, on other forms of gun regulation. For example, 81 percent of gun control supporters favor “a ban on assault-style weapons” compared to only 40 percent of gun rights supporters. Similarly, 84 percent of gun control supporters, but only 43 percent of gun rights supporters, favor “creating a federal government database to track all gun sales.”
Jason Reineke, associate director of the MTSU Poll, said these patterns among Tennessee voters are similar to patterns found in recent national polling.
In a Pew Research Center poll that used the same questions this summer, requiring background checks for private and gun-show firearm sales drew 82 percent approval among gun rights supporters and 88 percent approval among gun control supporters.
Majorities of both gun rights supporters (82 percent) and gun control supporters (77 percent) also approved of laws preventing gun sales to the mentally ill.
“Our poll represents a pretty stringent test of how acceptable these two measures might be to gun rights advocates,” Reineke said. “According to the Pew Center poll, only 47 percent of Americans think protecting gun rights is more important than controlling gun ownership. Comparing that figure to the 69 percent in our poll of Tennessee voters suggests that if these two measures can find strong general support here, they can probably find it just about anywhere.”
In terms of demographics, gun rights supporters in the state tend to be Republican, white and male. The same characteristics describe those who think gun ownership does more to protect people from becoming victims of crime than to put people’s safety at risk.
Learn more at www.mtsupoll.org.
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