Public’s Doubts on Gun Laws Affecting 2000 Race

When the Million Mom March descends on Washington Sunday, its goal is to make gun control appear as all-American as, well, motherhood. But, in fact, the country’s attitudes toward gun control remain complex, contradictory and ambivalent.

Polls consistently show that large majorities of Americans support almost any new gun-control measure short of confiscation, from mandating trigger locks to licensing handgun owners. Yet the same surveys show that much of the public remains dubious that such measures will have much effect on crime and violence.

In effect, the public has planted one foot firmly in each camp: supporting arguments from gun control advocates in favor of new restrictions even while expressing sympathy for the National Rifle Assn.’s case that enforcement of existing laws may be more effective than passing new ones.

This year’s presidential election will measure the strength of these competing impulses. Offering a clear contrast, Democrat Al Gore is agressively making the case for new laws while Republican George W. Bush is placing the most emphasis on enforcing existing laws.

Despite strong public support for many of the specific gun-control measures Gore has proposed, the country’s ambivalence about these impending arguments is reflected in a surprising fact: Most recent surveys show Bush slightly leads Gore when Americans are asked which candidate they trust more to handle the gun issue.

Since many voters are not yet familiar with the candidates’ positions, most analysts still believe Bush’s views on gun issues could cause him more problems than Gore’s--particularly with female voters that the Texan is now successfully courting. “Those who nurture children have a special problem with guns when children are the victims, and that’s really why guns are an issue in the last two years,” says independent pollster John Zogby.

But Bush’s early lead over Gore on the gun question, like the doubts about the effectiveness of new gun-control measures, are a reminder that the issue is not as clear-cut as it often appears.

On the surface, American attitudes toward gun control look straightforward. Especially in the wake of the last decade’s steady succession of mass shootings, there’s strong public support for almost any measure that gun control advocates advance.

In a nationwide Times Poll last fall, for instance, 56% of Americans said they believe gun control laws should be made more strict; just 9% said they should be loosened, while 30% said they should remain the same.

Support for specific gun control measures usually runs even higher. In a survey last month, Republican pollster Linda DiVall found nearly 9 in 10 Americans support the proposal backed by President Clinton and Gore--and opposed by Bush--to require up to three days for background checks for purchases at gun shows. Likewise, two-thirds of Americans said they would support the mandatory use of trigger locks on handguns, an idea that Gore has embraced while Bush has remained equivocal.

Other Gore proposals, such as requiring the licensing of all new handgun owners and raising the legal age for handgun ownership from 18 to 21, also draw support from about 80% of Americans in national polls.

But opinion is much more closely divided on whether such measures will actually reduce crime and violence.

“The polls are accurately reflecting two things: One is that the public does support these measures,” says State University of New York political scientist Robert Spitzer, author of “The Politics of Gun Control.” “The second is that people common-sensically understand that even when taken together they are not going to put an end to gun crime precisely because they are limited.”

In a March ABC poll, for instance, Americans divided almost exactly in half when asked whether stricter gun control laws would reduce the level of violent crime.

In a Gallup Poll taken around the same time, tougher enforcement of existing laws narrowly came out ahead of passing new gun-control laws when Americans were asked the best way to reduce gun violence.

And in a Zogby poll earlier this year, only 42% said they believed the Clinton administration’s gun control agenda would have a major effect on reducing gun violence, while 46% said it would not.

Even those narrowly divided numbers obscure the true depth of division on gun issues. Few issues offer such sharp regional and demographic variations.

In the Zogby poll, for instance, women were more optimistic than men about the value of new gun controls, blacks were more optimistic than whites and Northeasterners were more optimistic than residents of any other region. Residents of rural areas consistently express much more skepticism about gun control than do urbanites.

The doubts about the efficacy of new restrictions have given gun control critics increased confidence to press a counterargument: that the key to reducing gun violence is tougher enforcement of existing laws. The NRA, the leading voice of gun owners, has pounded that message throughout the Clinton presidency. And it’s been echoed by a growing chorus of leading Republicans, including Bush, the party’s presumptive presidential nominee.

Bush has indicated support for some gun control proposals, such as raising the age for handgun ownership. But Bush puts much more emphasis on the claim that the Clinton administration has failed to sufficiently enforce the gun laws already on the books.

“We need to send chilling signals throughout our society: If you commit a crime with a gun, there’s going to be a consequence, that we’ve got to enforce laws on the books,” Bush said on CNN on Tuesday night.

Fred Steeper, Bush’s pollster, maintains that message largely explains the recent polls showing Bush running slightly ahead of Gore when voters are asked who could best handle gun control issues. “That’s a very credible message for people who think gun violence is a major problem,” Steeper says.

Gore’s camp offers a different explanation for those poll results: Most Americans don’t yet know Bush’s position on guns. “For important segments of swing voters, once they know Bush’s positions on guns, they will favor us by significant margins,” says one senior Gore advisor.

Indeed, Gore’s camp sees the contrasts between the candidates on gun control as one of their most effective means to raise doubts about Bush among swing voters now attracted to him.

Already, Gore routinely lashes Bush for signing legislation in Texas allowing residents to carry concealed weapons; last week, Gore pledged to veto legislation barring cities from suing gun manufacturers to recover the costs of gun violence and challenged Bush to do the same.

Bush, who signed similar legislation in Texas, refused and instead suggested that he might sign a comparable federal bill.

Analysts in both parties agree that such contrasts could ultimately help Gore with important blocs in the electorate. In 1996, gun control was part of a constellation of social issues--which included abortion rights, education, teen smoking and the environment--that helped candidate Clinton run much better among married women than Democratic nominees had in the 1970s and ‘80s.

In 2000, with Bush neutralizing some of those issues (particularly education) and opening a substantial early lead among married women, guns may be even more crucial to Gore’s hopes of courting the “soccer moms.”

Likewise, analysts in both parties agree that Gore’s support for strong gun control is likely to boost him in the Northeast, along the West Coast and in some other big suburban states, such as Illinois, where even successful Republicans have usually supported more restrictions.

Bush’s support for concealed-weapon legislation in Texas could also become a burden in the swing states of Ohio and Michigan, where polls have found overwhelming opposition to the idea. Still, the gun issue could be less of a silver bullet for Gore in most of the Midwest battleground states that could decide the election.

In both those states as well as such other key heartland battlegrounds as Pennsylvania and Kentucky, there’s a more widespread hunting culture than along the coasts. That’s created a political environment in which opposition to gun control has not been as dangerous for candidates as in New York or California. Rep. Ron Klink, for instance, an NRA ally, recently won the Democratic Senate primary in Pennsylvania.

The open question is whether Bush will try to use Gore’s support for additional gun restrictions--particularly the licensing of gun owners--against him in rural parts of those states, as well as in the South and Mountain West. “I don’t think you want to single in on that issue,” said one top Bush advisor, “but we could try to push him in the box of ‘he’s way left on everything’ and this is one of those things.”

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Times Poll data supervisor Claudia Vaughn contributed to this analysis.