(NewsNation) — About 12% of American voters say they have recently purchased a gun for home protection, and 45% believe households with guns are safer than those that don’t, according to a recent NewsNation/Decision Desk HQ poll.
NewsNation commissioned Decision Desk HQ to conduct a survey measuring Americans’ perception of crime and how it’s handled, including gun ownership and access to guns.
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Gun violence was among the types of crime voters are most concerned about. Some 22% of voters said they most fear vehicle thefts and break-ins, followed by mass shootings at 14% and murder at 13%.
It’s reflected in their behavior, too. Respondents reported taking safety measures to protect themselves, including avoiding major public events and purchasing home security systems.
Decision Desk HQ’s Scott Tranter noted that past polls have shown a majority of Americans want stricter gun regulations. However, this poll is reflective of a “large swath of Americans who do not view responsible personal ownership of guns as a potential safeguard against crime.”
Democrats were more likely to be concerned about mass shootings than Republicans, with 19% of Democrats identifying mass shootings as the crime they were most concerned about, compared to only 11% of Republicans.
Republicans were most likely to have a gun in the home, followed by Independents, then Democrats.
Still, the majority, 57%, believe gun purchasing laws need to be more strict. That’s in line with what researchers know about Americans’ sentiments towards guns, said Richard Rosenfeld, chair of the Council on Criminal Justice’s Crime Trends Working Group.
Political rhetoric, particularly from the right, “doesn’t quite square with what most Americans believe,” he said.
“Americans tend to want somewhat stricter gun regulations than we have coming out of Congress and coming out of many, many state legislatures,” Rosenfeld said.
About 465 million firearms have been produced for the U.S. market since 1899, according to The Trace’s analysis of historical data from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives.
More recently, researchers estimate Americans bought 60 million guns from 2020 to 2022. However, tracking the total number of guns circulating in the U.S. is complicated by a lack of required reporting.
Decision Desk HQ surveyed 1,000 U.S. registered voters July 17 and 18. The poll has an estimated 3% overall margin of error.
