Ahead of the 250th anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence, a new survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research shows a majority of Americans believe in the importance of the right to keep and bear arms, but the 2A community still has a lot of work to do to safeguard that right.
According to the survey, about 90% of Americans say the right to vote and freedom of speech are fundamentally important to the American identity. About 80% say the same for freedom of religion. When it comes to the right to keep and bear arms, 57% of respondents say it’s extremely or very important; a majority, to be sure, but far less than the percentage of survey respondents who back other civil liberties.
Oddly, though less than 60% of respondents say the Second Amendment is extremely or very important, 69% say the right faces major or minor threats. That’s actually fairly close to the percentage of respondents who say the same about right to vote (66%) and freedom of religion (68%), but well behind those who say our freedom of speech is threatened (78%).
The concerns aren’t equally divided, though. 61% of Democrats, for instance, see major threats to the freedom of speech, compared to 34% of Republicans. And when it comes to the right to keep and bear arms, just 21% of Democats see major threats, compared to 40% of Republicans and 34% of independents.
I’m one of those who sees major threats to our Second Amendment rights, and it’s striking to me that even among Republicans I’m apparently in the minority. Yes, we have a DOJ that is now actively taking on unconstitutional gun laws around the country, which is great. We have a divided Congress, so there are currently no major threats on Capitol Hill… at least not any that pose an immediate risk. And many of these Republicans undoubtably live in states where the GOP controls the statehouse and governor’s office, so maybe they don’t see any major threats closer to home either.
I look around the country, though, and I see states from California to Connecticut trying to ban the sale of popular handguns. I see a dozen states outlawing the sale of commonly-owned semi-automatic rifles. There are efforts to make it illegal to carry a firearm in self-defense in almost every publicly accessible place, and in states like California the cost to obtain a permit to carry can run $1,000 or more.
We’re also seeing more states impose permit-to-purchase laws, which turn a right into a privilege subject to approval by the State, and in many cases still subject to the whims of licensing authorities. These are all major threats, and the fact that they’re being imposed at the state level doesn’t diminish the risk for gun owners across the country. In every state where Democrats gain control, infringements on our Second Amendment rights soon follow, and if anti-gunners gain majorities in Congress this November we’ll see the same attacks on our right to keep and bear arms at the federal level too.
I’m encouraged that most Americans say they recognize the importance of the right to keep and bear arms, but the results of this survey tell me that as Second Amendment advocates, we still need to educate our fellow Americans about the threats that currently exist.
Editor’s Note: The radical Left will stop at nothing to enact their radical gun control agenda and strip us of our Second Amendment rights.
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