By Timothy Wheeler, MD
I view polls with some skepticism because of the powerful influence of bias on their results. But this Gallup poll confirms others that show public opinion about guns to have settled back into its pre-Newtown status, or nearly so. “Gun violence” (I enclose this media-manufactured term in sneer quotes because it tries to blame the gun for crime instead of the criminal) ranks at the bottom of public priorities. It’s way down on a list of ongoing worries topped by jobs and the economy.
Right after the Newtown mass shooting last December public opinion understandably favored more gun control. But it’s human nature to make major political decisions based on emotions, not on logic. The surge of seemingly anti-gun rights sentiment waned over the subsequent four months. After the Obama administration and Senate heavyweights mounted an all-out, emotional legislative war against America’s 100 million gun owners, ultimately Congress did nothing. That 100 million figure has everything to do with this outcome.
The gun grabbers are beside themselves at having been outvoted on gun rights. It appears that President Obama, Vice President Biden, Sen. Manchin, and other anti-gun rights activists have chosen to ignore the warning signs to drop the matter. They are pressing ahead any way they can to enact more gun control. I suspect they will push it right into the campaign season for the mid-term elections, and those 100 million gun owners will express their displeasure at the polls. Bill Clinton warned Obama not to provoke gun owners. He spoke from his own experience in the landmark 1994 congressional upset, which he himself blamed on an excessive push for gun control.
But memories are short, and the pull of blind emotion is powerful. We’ll see in 19 short months if gun-grabbing politicians have condemned themselves to repeating the past.
—Timothy Wheeler, MD is director of Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership, a project of the Second Amendment Foundation.