9 in 10 back universal gun background checks

By Sarah Dutton, Jennifer De Pinto, Anthony Salvanto, Fred Backus and Brian Montopoli.

Ninety-two percent of Americans favor background checks for all potential gun buyers, according to a new CBS News/New York Times poll.

Universal background checks are one of the proposals that President Obama has called on Congress to pass as part of his proposal to combat gun violence in the wake of the massacre in a Newtown, Conn., elementary school in December.

"If you want to buy a gun -- whether it's from a licensed dealer or a private seller -- you should at least have to show you are not a felon or somebody legally prohibited from buying one," Mr. Obama said Wednesday, adding that "as many as 40 percent of all gun purchases are conducted without a background check."

• Obama calls for sweeping new gun laws
• Does Obama's gun control plan have a chance?

Licensed gun dealers already must run background checks, but unlicensed dealers and private sellers, many of whom sell guns at gun shows or over the internet, are not required to do so.

Only seven percent of respondents in the poll, which was conducted before the president's press conference, said they oppose background checks for all potential gun buyers.

Support for universal background checks went across party lines: 89 percent of Republicans and 93 percent of Democrats and independents were in favor, as well as 93 percent of gun households and 85 percent of those living in a household with a member of the National Rifle Association.

Seventy-four percent of Americans, meanwhile, said that more armed security guards would help prevent mass shootings in public places. Thirty-five percent said armed guards would help a lot in places like schools, movie theatres and malls, and another 39 percent said they would help some. One in four said they would not help.

In response to the Newtown tragedy, the NRA has called for all schools to have armed guards.

These findings are part of an initial release from the survey, which was taken from January 11-15. More results from the poll will be released later today.

For detailed results from these poll questions, see next page.

---

This poll was conducted by telephone from January 11-15, 2013 among 1,110 adults nationwide.

Phone numbers were dialed from samples of both standard land-line and cell phones. The error due to sampling for results based on the entire sample could be plus or minus three percentage points. The error for subgroups may be higher. This poll release conforms to the Standards of Disclosure of the National Council on Public Polls.

• no previous page
• next

1/2

[obwon2008]

ANYBODY can skew a poll with leading questions "are you still beating your wife?" etc. Questions that don't explain the content, dangers, traps and implications of this proposed gun control legislation. Also, you must ask WHO is conducting this poll, is this pollster NEUTRAL? In this case CBS and the NY Times are mere liberal pawns serving Bloomberg, Obama and the rest of the idealistic PERFECT WORLDERS (in a perfect world there would be no crime, no guns and we would all sniff flowers and love each other, BUT it's not a perfect world). Do the people really understand that parts of this bill are 1. unenforceable 2. will not reduce crime 3. targets innocent law abiding Americans by creating another government trap to criminalize them 4. By allowing more government intrusion into your personal lives also endangers your other rights such as freedom of speech and freedom of choice. Believe me people, this big brother cancer will spread like wild fire if we allow it to happen. Forget the liberal vs conservative crap and stand for your freedom and the future freedom of your children.

[EEngMark]

If you want to see polling tricks, just look at the details. Were all states/regions polled and weighted? Is this for all americans, including children, or was it only for registered votors or likely voters? Even if you assume that a completely random sample was used, the questions themselves are designed to elicit a specific and biased response.

Look at the number of questions. The two provided read are q59 and q63. This implies that the survey was long, which for a voluntary survey tends to filter out those whose time is important. In addition, repondends tend to gloss over details after the first ten to twenty questions, so accuracy can deminish over time. True results would be based on several reinforcing questions, not those that are cherry picked from a larger survey.

q59: "...federal law requiring background checks on ALL potential gun buyers."

What does All mean? What is a background check? Is this limmited to commercial sales? Does this cover selling to a known friend? Is this the same as what we have in place today? Does the NCIS check system count? A vague/broad questions is designed to elicit a broad and encompasing answer. Then in reporting, the reponse is tied to a very specific legislative proposal, which wasn't part of the question.

q63: "How much to you think more police or armed security guards would do to prevent mass shootings in public places such as.....(long list)..."

This question is really dependent on how much security you already have. The list encompases a variety of locations, which may have differing answers. The result, could just as easily have generated a different headline: "9 in 10 back Armed Security Guards."

The really big red flag is the NRA dimension. Notice the term "NRA household." This almost sounds like you are polling NRA members, but you aren't. It's just that the respondent has claimed to be a member of the household who has an NRA member. So who is being polled: a spouse, a young child, or someone else? Resulting news stories suddenly omit the word household, and then make the misleading claim that NRA members have a specific response, which isn't supported by the survey data at all.

There are a lot of red flags here, and the results appear to be mostly useless from a polling perspective. Please don't fall for the "9 out of 10" argument. It isn't backed up with valid poll data.

[nomorelibs]

Would like to know how many of these mass killings would have been prevented with this proposed legislation. I don't recall hearing that any of these individuals obtained these guns illegally, or had anything in their background that would have prevented these senseless acts. We always seem to focus on the wrong aspect of why bad things happen to good people. All we are doing is tying the hands of the law abiding citizens. Why is this so difficult to understand? Does it give people a sense of security to pass these useless laws?

[bigbear44--2008]

That is the biggest load of crap ,a bunch fascist liberal waste of space took the polls you can bet on that !!

[Opsec86]

Wow! Maybe if this had happened, maybe if that...liberals want a risk-free utopian world. So liberals want to require everything to make the world a safer place? Start with requiring a ban on automobiles--more people are killed by them than guns; then advance to swimming--more people, especially kids, drown each year than are killed by guns. Require diet changes. The list goes on and on. Go to the CDC for your hard evidence.

Let's debunk the car registration issue--driving a car and licensing it for on-the-road use is a PRIVILEGE granted by the state, it is not a CONSTITUTIONAL RIGHT. Privileges can be revoked, rights cannot especially, as in the Bill of Rights, they are delineated as God-given and inalienable.

'If the sellers were on the hook for selling guns to criminals, you can be sure criminals would have FAR fewer guns' Already been proven false over multiple years by multiple credible sources. With 260 million guns in the U.S. there is no practical way to keep guns out of the hands of a determined criminal, hence, the concept of 'the only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun'.

Contrary to liberal beliefs, the world is not all butterflies and unicorns that can be made even more wonderful and safer by laws and regulations. It has evil people bent on doing evil to others. You do what you want, but you will not take away my option to defend myself, my family and loved ones against any evil threat.

[barcar55]

I wonder where this poll was conducted as well. I'm sure it was done among a very select group. You sure wouldn't find that percentage across the South. And off subject to this. If there were so many bomb sniffing dogs and mass security at the marathon, how was this able to play out? Makes you wonder what is really going on behind the scenes. Apparently there were "bomb drills" taking place and the people being told via loud speaker not to worrry because everything was under control. Yeah right!

[Batt4Christ]

Who did they survey? Where were these people supposedly asked? How were the questions asked (was it a push-poll)?

You would be hard-pressed to find much more than 50% support in the most liberal cities in the Southern states. I just don't see how this could be accurate at all, unless the poll was conducted in hand-picked neighborhoods in certain cities in the NorthEast, NorthWest, and West (California). Even then, to get close to 90% would require some serious "filtering" of results to achieve the desired numbers.

[wldy1005]

I truley feel for these people who have lost loved ones. It is devestating to have to endure such pain. But I do not support universal background checks. I am a 26 yr old disabled women. I recently became a member of the NRA and am just trying to protect my constitutional right to bare arms. I feel like I must defend myself from my own government! The possability of universal background checks leads to a possability of a universal gun registry and is not worth the risk

[ohnomeagain]

Let Obama be the first in line to have a background check done. I seriously doubt he could pass one!!!

[JaniLisa]

I am reasonably certain that the president already has passed numerous background checks or he would not be president.

[YeahItIsMe]

***??? What kind of poll is this??
"This poll was conducted by telephone from January 11-15, 2013 among 1,110 adults nationwide."
So those 1,110 adults speak for the entire country??!!??! CBS, you should be ashamed of yourselves for promoting this filth.

[Obammys_TOTUS]

They polled 1110 adults, all of whom live in NYC, San Francisco and Chicago.

[j_mcdonald-2009]

Learn some statistics.

95% of the time, results for a randomly selected group of 1,100 people will be within 2.95% of the same result for the entire population, no matter how large that population is.

And the results will be within 5% virtually 100% of the time.

It's basic math, but I guess that counts as "filth" in the land of the reality impaired.