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The majority of Americans across demographic lines agreed with a Supreme Court decision made two years ago that affirmed the right to carry handguns for self-defense.
Members of the Supreme Court decided in the Bruen case two years ago to overturn aggressive restrictions on concealed carry licensing for residents in the state of New York. Marquette University found in a new survey that most Americans concur with the decision to protect “an individual’s right to carry a handgun for self-defense outside the home” with “some restrictions.”
The survey showed that 76% of men and 65% of women either “strongly favor” or “somewhat favor” the decision rather than “somewhat oppose” or “strongly oppose” the move.
Even as some 93% of those who lean Republican and 54% of independents favored the decision, a slight 51% majority of those who lean Democratic also supported the move, even as the official platform and leadership of the party advances gun control.
Decisive majorities of respondents who identified as white, black, and Hispanic also supported the decision, as did those who call themselves born-again Protestants, mainline Protestants, and Roman Catholics. The same was true across age and income divides.
The decision in Bruen was the second most popular recent Supreme Court opinion out of the six mentioned in the survey from Marquette University, outranked only by the Students for Fair Admissions decision in which the Supreme Court ruled against affirmative action at colleges.
Second Amendment advocacy organizations observed that the survey results indicate political opposition to the right to keep and bear arms is increasingly a losing position.
“Never allow anti-gunners to claim their beliefs are popular,” the official social media page for the National Association for Gun Rights said in reaction to the survey. “They are fringe extremists who are increasingly being forced to show who they truly are.”
