North Carolinians favor tighter gun laws, fear they'll become mass shooting victims, WRAL News Poll shows

The survey of 1,100 adults in the state, conducted in partnership with Survey USA from Sept. 28 through Sunday, also showed a wide belief that a recent law expanding background checks for gun buyers under 21 and giving more money to states to take guns away from people deemed too dangerous to own them would reduce gun violence.

The WRAL poll on Friday reported a credibility interval of 3.5 percentage points. A credibility interval is similar to a margin of error but takes into account more factors and is considered by some pollsters to be a more accurate measurement of statistical certainty.

Chris Cooper, a Western Carolina University political scientist, said the results show North Carolinians supportive of increased gun restrictions. He said he was most surprised that Republicans favored raising the age of buying assault weapons to 21 by a 16-point margin — a provision that was not included in a recent law signed by President Joe Biden. While 64% of overall respondents said the new law should have raised the purchasing age, only 23% said it should not.

“This was a bit of a stunner to me that more than half of the Republican sample thought that the new federal law should have raised the purchasing age to 21 for assault weapons,” Cooper said. “More than half Republicans said, ‘Hey, this gun law didn't go far enough when it comes to assault weapons.’”

The poll further found wide support for banning the sale of high-capacity magazines, including a plurality of Republicans and sizable majorities of Democrats and independents. Fifty-percent of those surveyed thought the new law should have banned such sales, while 27% said the law shouldn’t.

About three in five respondents, including a plurality of registered Democrats, Republicans and unaffiliated voters, said Congress should pass additional legislation to address gun violence.

Democrats signaled the greatest concern on the issue, with three-fifths fearful of becoming or having a family member become a victim of a mass shooting. Fifty-one percent of independents and 37% of Republicans felt similarly.

Cooper said that laws are more likely to change if elected officials feel more political pressure from voters than the gun industry.

“The gun lobby matters,” Cooper said. “It's not just about the money. It's about all the voters they bring with them and all the pressure that you're able to exert, particularly on the Republican Party. Our gun laws in general are counter-majoritarian. In other words, they run a little bit counter to the average or the majority of the people in this country. So why is that? You've got to turn to the special interests that are trying to keep it that way.”