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Support For An ‘Assault Weapons’ Ban Hits An All-Time Low

assault weapons ban

A new poll concludes that most Americans oppose a ban on assault weapons. Interestingly, most Americans don’t think the government can stop terrorism.

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A new ABC News/Washington Post poll found that support for an assault weapons ban is dropping. Fifty-three percent of Americans who were surveyed say they oppose such a ban, the highest amount of opposition to the ban ever recorded. Only 45 percent thought banning assault weapons was a good idea—a significant drop from the 56 percent who supported it in 2013 and 80 percent who supported it in 1994.

The poll also found that most Americans—77 percent of those surveyed—don’t think the government can successfully thwart lone-wolf terrorist attacks. In fact, only 22 percent said they were confident that the government could stop a lone-wolf attack, while 43 percent thought the government could stop a larger-scale attack.

Of those surveyed, 42 percent thought stricter gun control was the best response to terrorism, while 47 percent disagreed. As Joe Perticone of IJReview pointed out, it seems that as confidence in the government’s ability to stop terrorism wanes, more people are clutching their last line of defense, which is the Second Amendment right to own firearms, including assault rifles.

This new poll isn’t the first to show that most Americans think banning assault weapons is a bad idea. Sean Davis pointed out last week that a survey conducted by The New York Times observed the same trend of dwindling support for the ban. In the aforementioned survey, the Times found that only 44 percent of Americans supported the ban.