Source: Pew Research Center

Most Clinton, Trump backers favor stricter background checks

For the past several years, large majorities of both Democrats and Republicans have favored making private gun sales and sales at gun shows subject to background checks.

Today, this proposal draws support from 90% of registered voters who back Hillary Clinton and 75% of voters who back Donald Trump.

The latest national survey by Pew Research Center, conducted August 9-16 among 2,010 adults, including 1,567 registered voters, also finds broad support among both candidates’ backers for other gun policy proposals, including barring people on federal watch lists from purchasing guns.

Other proposals are much more divisive, however. For instance, about twice as many Clinton supporters as Trump backers favor a ban on assault-style weapons (74% vs. 34%) and the differences are about as large in views of a ban on high-capacity ammunition clips (75% vs. 34%).

Moreover, the gap in how candidates’ supporters view overall priorities for the nation’s gun policy is much wider today than it has been in any presidential campaign dating to 2000.

As in recent years, the public overall remains divided over whether it is generally more important to protect the right of Americans to own guns (52%) or to control gun ownership (46%).

Today, registered voters who prefer the Democratic candidate are more supportive of controlling gun ownership than during the four previous campaigns, while supporters of the Republican candidate are less supportive.

By more than four-to-one (79% to 19%), Clinton supporters prioritize controlling gun ownership over protecting gun rights. By about nine-to-one (90% to 9%), Trump supporters express the opposite view – that it is generally more important to protect gun rights than control gun ownership.

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