New Poll: Majority of Republicans Support Universal Background Checks and Firearm Registration

According to MPR News, results of a recent poll reveal that over half of people who identify as supporters of the Second Amendment and over half of those respondents who claim to be Republicans approve universal background checks and firearm licensing and registration.

From May 12-18, the McCourtney Institute for Democracy surveyed 1,000 adults as to their opinions on “several actions that Congress might take related to guns.” Specifically, respondents were asked whether they supported or opposed the following policies:

1. Require background checks for all firearm sales and transfers;
2. Require gun owners to take a test, get a license, and register their firearms just like they do for their automobiles;
3. Ban the sale and private ownership of semi-automatic firearms referred to as assault weapons; and
4. Eliminate most current gun laws in order to protect Second Amendment rights.

The poll results were broken down into party identification (Republican, Democrat, and Independent), and the answers given by Republicans foretell a bleak future for the recognition of the right of the people to keep and bear arms.

When asked about universal background checks, 80 percent of Republicans approved. When asked about testing, licensing, and registering guns as described in number 2 above, 54 percent of Republicans approved. Regarding “assault weapons,” 41 percent of Republicans supported making it illegal for civilians to own them.

There was one sliver of light in the darkness of these numbers: More than half of those who identified themselves as Republicans support eliminating most gun laws. It’s a very small sliver, though, because if those respondents understood the Second Amendment as they ought to, they would know a couple of things: First, there is no such thing as a “law” restricting the keeping and bearing of arms; second, eliminating “most” gun “laws” is as much of an assault on our rights as eliminating “none” of the gun “laws.”

The fact that the number of gun regulations in this country is any number higher than zero is convincing evidence that the government will continue its quest to consolidate monopoly control over weapons of any sort. That’s not a surprise, as governments tend toward tyranny when left unchecked by the people. The responses revealed in this new survey are concerning, however, as the people are the last and great check on government infringement on the natural right of self-defense. 

The Republican Party’s official platform calls for “protecting constitutionally guaranteed freedoms,” and if the responses given by Republicans are indicative of the party’s definition of “protecting constitutionally guaranteed freedoms,” then there is little hope for keeping the Second Amendment sacrosanct.

Supporting disarmament, under any pretense whatsoever, is a notorious and hostile attack on the natural right of self-defense, as well as an infringement on the God-given right to defend one’s life, liberty, and property with any weapon the assaulted person prefers. 

The text of the Second Amendment very plainly prohibits government infringement of the right to keep and bear arms, and there is no exception to that prohibition. The Second Amendment is not only law, it is part of the supreme law of the land. Ironically, despite the answers given by the respondents to this poll, there is no such thing as a “gun law,” at least not one that should ever be enforced in the United States. 

There is, apparently, an urgent need to educate all Americans as to the text of the Second Amendment and the difference between law and tyranny.

I’m reminded of something Cicero wrote in his book On the Laws, regarding the definition of the word “law”:

If then in the majority of nations, many pernicious and mischievous enactments are made, as far removed from the law of justice we have defined as the mutual engagements of robbers, are we bound to call them laws? For as we cannot call the recipes of ignorant empirics, who give poisons instead of medicines, the prescriptions of a physician, we cannot call that the true law of the people, whatever be its name, if it enjoins what is injurious, let the people receive it as they will. 

In other words, just because Congress — or some executive branch agency — passes some act or issues some regulation restricting the right of the people to keep and bear arms, that does not make that act or regulation law; and if it isn’t law, the people are under no moral or legal obligation to obey it.

In the case of the Second Amendment, there can be no true law, unless it be a law upholding the right to keep and bear arms, which is unnecessary.

The support by Republicans for these onerous and unconstitutional restrictions on gun purchase, ownership, and use is made more troublesome because these policies were framed by the polling company as “actions Congress might take related to guns.” If there are people who are counting on electing Republicans to Congress in order to restore the rights protected by the Second Amendment, it seems that those who would vote for those candidates don’t know what the Second Amendment means and, if these poll numbers are reliable, a majority of them will vote for people who would actually enact additional restrictions on our rights.

However, the report on the survey’s findings did reveal a hopeful trend. According to the report, in comparison to the results of the same survey conducted in 2019, there was “a statistically significant 10 percentage point increase in overall support for ‘eliminating most current gun laws in order to protect Second Amendment rights.’”

Of course, in order to actually “protect Second Amendment rights,” the word “most” would have to be removed from that sentence.