Public Attitudes Toward Gun Control - A Deeply Personal Issue

The gun control issue has become prominent over the past fifty years, as gun users carried out political assassinations, assassination attempts, and violent crimes. Americans mourned the deaths of President John Kennedy; his brother, presidential candidate Robert Kennedy; and civil rights leader Martin Luther King, Jr. Presidents Gerald Ford and Ronald Reagan were victimized by would-be assassins, as were presidential candidate George Wallace and civil rights leaders Medgar Evers and Vernon Jordan.

The White House has been fired upon on several occasions. In October 1994 convicted felon Francisco Martin Duran fired twenty to thirty rounds at the White House from a Chinese-made assault rifle. Because of his felony conviction, Duran did not pass a background check when he tried to purchase a handgun, but no such check was required for his purchase of the rifle. Duran was convicted of the attempted assassination of President Bill Clinton. In July 1998 Russell Weston, Jr., shot and killed two police officers at the U.S. Capitol after running through a metal detector and firing a handgun. Because he had once been committed to a mental institution, Weston could not, in most states, legally carry a gun. Law enforcement officials reported that Weston took his father's revolver from his parents' bedroom. According to National Rifle Association (NRA) spokesman Bill Powers, gun control laws would not have helped this situation. After Robert Pickett fired shots at the White House in February 2001, the Violence Policy Center called for a ban on small, easily concealable handguns and high-powered assault weapons. Pickett had cleared an instant background check to buy a handgun despite his history of mental illness.

By the end of the twentieth century, the nation endured rising rates of violent crime, with young people frequently involved as victims and perpetrators and often armed with guns. Shootings in schools and the workplace became more prevalent. Time after time, public opinion polls have shown that crime and violence are among the most important concerns troubling Americans, if not the most important. But do these concerns translate to changes in public support for federal gun control measures?