National Support for Gun Protection Grows While Support for Abortion Slips
A Study by the Pew Research Center (which is typically liberal so this is great news!)
Overview
Public attitudes on a pair of contentious national issues – gun control and abortion – have moved in a more conservative direction over the past year. In both cases, the changes have been driven in part by relatively large shifts among men, while opinions among women have not changed very much.
For the first time in a Pew Research survey, nearly as many people believe it is more important to protect the right of Americans to own guns (45%) than to control gun ownership (49%). As recently as a year ago, 58% said it was more important to control gun ownership while 37% said it was more important to protect the right to own guns.
The latest national survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted March 31-April 21 among 1,521 adults reached on landlines and cell phones, also finds public opinion about abortion more closely divided than it has been in several years. Currently, 46% say abortion should be legal in most cases (28%) or all cases (18%); 44% believe that abortion should be illegal in most (28%) or all cases (16%). Since the mid-1990s, majorities have consistently favored legal abortion, with the exception of an August 2001 survey by ABC News/Washington Post.
The proportion saying that abortion should be legal in all or most cases has declined to 46% from 54% last August. The decline in support for legal abortion has come entirely in the share saying abortion should be legal in most cases (from 37% to 28%); 18% say abortion should be legal in all cases, which is virtually unchanged from last August (17%). Currently, 44% say abortion should be illegal in most (28%) or all cases (16%), up slightly since last August (41%).
More Men Back Gun Rights
A widening gender gap is now apparent on both abortion and gun control. A year ago, a narrow majority of men (51%) said it was more important to control gun ownership, while 45% said it was more important to protect the right of Americans to own guns. Today, by 57% to 38%, men say protecting gun rights is more important.
By contrast, 60% of women say it is more important to control gun ownership, while 33% see protecting gun rights as more important. In April 2008, 64% of women said controlling gun ownership was more important compared with 30% who placed greater importance on protecting the right to own guns.
The balance of opinion among independents has changed substantially over the past year. In April 2008, a majority of independents (56%) said it was more important to control gun ownership; currently, independents are divided, with 48% saying it is more important to protect gun rights and 45% saying it is more important to control gun ownership.
Support for gun rights has increased by 11 points in the Midwest, nine points in the South and seven points in the West; in all three regions, opinion is now evenly divided over whether it is more important to protect gun rights or control gun ownership. By contrast, there has been virtually no change among those living in the East, where a substantial majority (63%) continues to say that controlling gun ownership is the greater priority.
Gun Ownership and Gun Control
As might be expected, people who say they have guns in their home are much more supportive of gun rights than are those who do not own guns. Overall, a third of Americans – including 42% of men and 25% of women – say they have a gun, rifle or pistol in their home.
By a wide margin (68% to 28%), gun owners say it is more important to protect the right to own guns than to control gun ownership. The much larger share that does not have a gun in their home (63% of the public) places greater priority on controlling gun ownership by 63% to 31%.
There are substantial gender differences in views about gun control among gun owners and non-owners alike. Fully three-quarters of men who say they have a gun in their home (75%) believe it is more important to protect gun rights than to control gun ownership; a much smaller majority of women gun owners agree (57%). Similarly, most men who do not have a gun in their home (53%) say it is more important to control gun ownership. But an even higher percentage of women who are not gun owners (69%) place a greater priority on controlling gun ownership.
Abortion Support Slips
Currently, 43% of men say that abortion should be legal in most or all cases, while 46% say abortion should be illegal in most or all cases. In August 2008, a greater proportion of men said that abortion should be legal than illegal (by 53% to 42%).
The change among women has been more modest – 49% believe abortion should be legal in most or all cases, down from 54% last August.
People older than 50 – both men and women – express less support for legal abortion than they did in August 2008. Just 40% of men older than 50 say abortion should be legal in most or all cases compared with 53% last summer. Support for legal abortion among women older than 50 has fallen from 53% to 45%.
There has been little change in opinions among women younger than 50: 53% say that abortion should be legal in most or all cases, which is largely unchanged from August (55%). Support for abortion has declined since last April among men under age 50 (from 53% then to 45% currently).
Abortion Opinions: A Closer Look
Between August and late October 2008, the proportion supporting legal abortion ranged from 57% (in mid-October) to 53% (in late October), before declining to 46% currently. Though opinion among some subgroups varied significantly across those surveys, some trends are apparent, aside from the falloff in support among men.
There has been notable decline in the proportion of independents saying abortion should be legal in most or all cases; majorities of independents favored legal abortion in August and the two October surveys, but just 44% do so today. In addition, the proportion of moderate and liberal Republicans saying abortion should be legal declined between August and late October (from 67% to 57%). In the current survey, just 43% of moderate and liberal Republicans say abortion should legal in most or all cases.
Among religious groups, support for abortion has steadily declined since August among white mainline Protestants (from 69% then to 54% currently). And just 23% of white evangelical Protestants now favor legal abortion, down from 33% in August and mid-October and 28% in late October.
The change has been less pronounced among white non-Hispanic Catholics: In August, 51% said that abortion should be legal in most or all cases; in both October surveys, 55% favored legal abortion. In the current survey, 49% of white non-Hispanic Catholics say that abortion should be legal while 42% believe it should be illegal.
About the Survey
Results for this survey are based on telephone interviews conducted under the direction of Princeton Survey Research Associates among a nationwide sample of 3,013 adults, 18 years of age or older, from March 31 – April 21, 2009 (2260 respondents were interviewed on a landline telephone, and 753 were interviewed on a cell phone, including 271 who had no landline telephone). Interviews were conducted in English and Spanish. Both the landline and cell phone samples were provided by Survey Sampling International. Detailed information about our survey methodology
The questions in this release were asked of Form 2 respondents only; results are based on 1,521 interviews. For results based on Form 2, one can say that the error attributable to sampling that would be expected at the 95% level of confidence is plus or minus 3 percentage points. In addition to sampling error, one should bear in mind that question wording and practical difficulties in conducting surveys can introduce error or bias into the findings of opinion polls.
The combined landline and cell phone sample are weighted using an iterative technique that matches gender, age, education, race/ethnicity, region, and population density to parameters from the March 2008 Census Bureau’s Current Population Survey. The sample is also weighted to match current patterns of telephone status and relative usage of landline and cell phones (for those with both), based on extrapolations from the 2007 National Health Interview Survey. The weighting procedure also accounts for the fact that respondents with both landline and cell phones have a greater probability of being included in the sample.
About the Center
The Pew Research Center for the People & the Press is an independent opinion research group that studies attitudes toward the press, politics and public policy issues. We are sponsored by The Pew Charitable Trusts and are one of seven projects that make up the Pew Research Center, a nonpartisan “fact tank” that provides information on the issues, attitudes and trends shaping America and the world.
The Center’s purpose is to serve as a forum for ideas on the media and public policy through public opinion research. In this role it serves as an important information resource for political leaders, journalists, scholars, and public interest organizations. All of our current survey results are made available free of charge.
All of the Center’s research and reports are collaborative products based on the input and analysis of the entire Center staff consisting of:
Andrew Kohut, Director
Scott Keeter, Director of Survey Research
Carroll Doherty and Michael Dimock, Associate Directors
Michael Remez, Senior Writer
Juliana Menasce Horowitz, Robert Suls, Shawn Neidorf, Leah Christian and Jocelyn Kiley, Research Associates
Kathleen Holzwart and Alec Tyson, Research Analysts
