Rasmussen Gun Poll Reveals Three Disturbing Facts For Gun Rights

The poll summary can be found here.

Fact #1: 48% of American Adults favor a mandatory federal license for all gun owners.  (39% oppose, 13% undecided)

Fact #2: A majority of Americans do not believe a license requirement will reduce gun crime.

Fact #3: A majority of Americans do not trust the federal government with gun laws.

I see three major takeaways from this poll:

First, nearly half of Americans are in favor of licensing (and likely background checks too) ON PRINCIPLE.  They do not care if it has any effect on crime or not.  They simply believe a license should be required because guns are dangerous and if we require a license to drive a car, we should require one to own and operate a firearm.  Proving that there is no benefit will not change their minds. 

Second, no matter what SCOTUS says, a near majority of Americans do not believe that gun ownership is (or should be) a civil right.  They view it as a privilege.  This is not good news.

Third, support for gun rights is a minority opinion.  The fact that only 39% oppose gun owner licensing is disturbing.  It indicates that there is little to no support for gun rights outside of gun owning households.  THIS IS WHY SO MANY GUN CONTROL BALLOT MEASURES ARE PASSING.

Looking ahead IMHO, this is what we should do:

1) A primary focus should be legal action.  We are unlikely to stop any gun bills from passing in many states.

2) We should make every effort to keep gun initiatives off of state ballots - because they are likely to pass.

3) We should seriously consider writing and lobbying for a simple expansion of NICS checks to private SALES only.  Family transactions should be exempted.  We should  combine this with a federal preemption of laws regulating the sale and possession of firearms.

Why should we do this?   Several reasons:

Background checks will be expanded eventually, given these poll numbers.  If we don't write the bill, the gun grabbers will.

Passing such a bill would prevent Bloomberg from "piggybacking" massive restrictions on his "background check" bills and initiatives.  (He has already done this in several states and will certainly continue to do so.)

This tactic would turn Bloomberg's own lies against him.  He would be forced to oppose a background check expansion bill and to admit that the laws to lobbied for in so many states actually DO go far beyond background checks on sales.  It would be hard for Bloomberg and other gun control advocates to sell the idea that state background checks are needed in addition to federal checks.