An alarming new poll by CBS News/YouGov released on Thursday indicates that a staggering number of U.S. gun owners believe that Americans will simply have to learn to accept the recurrence of mass shootings.
More than half of all U.S. gun owners polled – 51 percent – said that mass shootings are “unfortunately” something that happens in a free society and that Americans must accept that they can’t be prevented.
The ignorance in that statement is astounding, and it goes to show how successful the NRA’s nationwide propaganda campaign has been in skewing public opinion on the issue of gun ownership. In other words, to these men and women, owning a gun is more important than the thousands of lives that have been lost this year alone to gun violence.
Talk about a twisted worldview. On the opposite end of the spectrum, 67 percent of non-gun owners said that U.S. mass shootings could be stopped if an effort was launched to prevent them. This has been demonstrated particularly poignantly by the government of Australia, which passed sweeping gun control and bought back hundreds of thousands of assault weapons after a mass shooting in the 1990s. The fact that gun control saves lives is also demonstrated by the numerous countries around the world who do not suffer multiple mass shootings every year because of strict gun control laws that keep citizens safe.
Out of all of the Americans polled, 63 percent said that mass shootings like those seen in Orlando, Las Vegas, and Newtown, could be prevented in the future.
According to The Hill, the poll was released on the fifth anniversary of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary in Newtown, Connecticut in which 20 children and 6 adults were shot to death.
The poll indicates that 61 percent of Americans who own guns say that guns make America “free”. 59 percent say that guns make the U.S. “safe”. An overwhelming 55 percent of gun owners said that guns make America “strong”.
Non-gun-owners, on the other hand, said in a solid majority – 55 percent – that guns make America “dangerous”.
On the front of gun control, we have some work to do. It’s time to pay attention to which politicians pocket money from the NRA and vote them out of office come 2018.
