The 75% Solution: An Analysis of the Structure of Attitudes on Gun Control, 1959-1977

Abstract

One of the few constants in American public opinion over the last two decades has been that three-fourths of the population supports gun control. Sixteen surveys were conducted from 1959 to 1977 which asked the question, Would you favor or oppose a law which would require a person to obtain a police permit before he or she could buy a gun? The public response has split consistently about three-to-one in favor of gun control (see table 1).' The low point of opposition occurred in December, 1963, during the traumatic aftermath of President Kennedy's assassination, and the high point appeared in August, 1966. In the remaining fourteen surveys the opposition to gun control moved within a narrow band of from 22 to 28%.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 46 citations exist upstream.