Nearly two-thirds of U.S. voters support stricter gun laws, according to a Quinnipiac University poll released Tuesday that showed more people than ever backing stricter laws in the wake of last week’s school shooting in Florida.
Sixty-six percent of voters said they support stricter gun laws - the highest ever level of support measured in the poll. Thirty-one percent said they were opposed.
“If you think Americans are largely unmoved by the mass shootings, you should think again,” said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll. “Support for stricter gun laws is up nearly 19 points in little more than 2 years.”
Sixty-seven percent also said they favor a nationwide ban on the sale of military-style, semiautomatic weapons, compared to 29 percent who said they were opposed. More than four in five voters also said they support a mandatory waiting period on all gun buys.
Using an AR-15 rifle, a gunman opened fire at Stoneman Douglas High School in Florida last week, killing at least 17 people and leaving others injured.
Public polling frequently shows an uptick in support for gun controls immediately after a mass shooting, though perhaps not to this extent.
A Quinnipiac survey released in Feb. 2013, shortly after the Dec. 2012 Newtown school shootings, found that 52 percent supported stricter gun laws, compared to 43 percent who said they were opposed.
That had dropped to a 47 percent/50 percent support/oppose split in December 2015.
But it jumped back up to a 60 percent/36 percent split in favor of stricter laws in a poll released in November 2017, after a mass shooting at a Texas church that month that left at least 26 people dead and a shooting at a concert in Las Vegas in October that killed at least 59 people.
• David Sherfinski can be reached at dsherfinski@washingtontimes.com.
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