Gun Owners Put Their Money And Votes Where Their Mouth Is

The Pew Research Center released a poll on views about gun control this past weekend. The survey itself was taken at the beginning of May.

When asked whether it was more important to control guns or to preserve the right of Americans to own guns, the response was virtually a dead heat. 50% said it was more important to control guns while 48% said it was more important to preserve the right of American to own guns. This is a change from last December when Pew surveyed Americans after the Newtown shooting and found greater support for gun control. The overall margin of error in the poll is 2.9 percentage points which puts these results within the margin of error.

The survey also asked respondents about whether they had contributed to a gun rights or gun control organization as well as questions on civic involvement on the issue. In what should be no surprise to those of us who support gun rights, we put our money and our efforts where our mouth is.

From a US News and World Report on the survey published today:

Gun rights supporters donate four times more and are more politically involved than gun control advocates, according to a poll from the Pew Research Center published this weekend.

In May 2013, six months after the Newtown school shooting that sparked a national conversation on guns – and a month after the Senate failed to pass a major gun bill – Pew found that 25 percent of people who support gun rights had contributed money to a second amendment group, while just 6 percent of people who support gun control had donated on the issue.

Just as important as donating, gun rights supporters are more likely to have contacted a public official about gun rights issues. Moreover, they are more likely to have expressed their views regarding gun rights on social media sites such as Facebook and Twitter as well as having signed a petition on gun rights. Perhaps most importantly, gun rights supporters are more likely to have more than one of these activities by a 3 to 2 margin within the last 6 months and a 2 to 1 margin lifetime.

Even with the White House using the bully pulpit to push their gun control agenda and the media acting as propaganda agents for gun prohibitionists, we who support gun rights are still the ones who are more willing to put our money where our mouth is and are more politically involved.