Biden Lost the Public on Gun Control, He’ll Lose on the Issue

The road to President Biden’s plan to address the uptick in violent crime by enacting sweeping gun control measures is filled with immovable roadblocks and deep potholes.

They come in the form of Middle America’s distaste for more gun control — even by a group long believed to be in the hip pocket of the Democratic Party.

The results of a Rasmussen Reports survey released Monday indicated a growing resistance to the necessity of enacting new gun control legislation, such as the proposals that the Biden administration is promoting.

Only 33% support new gun control legislation, while a majority, 52%, believe the government should instead enforce more strictly those gun control laws that already exist.

Fifteen percent weren’t sure.

The poll also indicated that 54% of respondents agreed that America’s “founders explicitly wanted an armed citizenry to keep potentially tyrannical governments in check.”

Nearly a third of the respondents, 32%, strongly agreed.

Only 26% disagreed, while 20% weren’t sure.

This is reflected by the spike in legal sales of firearms from federally licensed gun dealers — most of it prompted by the uptick in violent crime.

Approximately 21 million guns were legally sold in 2020, representing an increase of 73% over the number purchased in 2019.

Many of them were first-time gun owners like Trish Beaudet, a mother of three who said she was purchasing two handguns — one for herself, and another for her 25-year-old daughter.

“I’ve never owned a gun. I’ve never wanted a gun. I’ve never had a gun in my home,” she said, and then explained the reason for her purchase.

“It really bothers me when I watched things on the news, when you talk about the riots, and the looting, and the violence that’s happening. Pulling a gun is the last thing I ever want to do, but I want to know that if I need to protect myself, my family, my, you know, my children, that I can do that.”

This year shows every indication of crushing 2020’s 21 million sales record. As of May 31, 19,188,494 firearms were already sold.

Even the NAACP — hardly a gun rights organization, and generally believed to be reliably Democratic — has doubts about the Biden administration’s plan to restrict Second Amendment rights while increasing funds for policing.

“This is an ongoing problem that is occurring not only in Grand Rapids, but in cities all across the country,” said Carlton T. Mayers II, the policing reform advisor for the Grand Rapids, Mich. NAACP. “It encourages over-policing of Black and brown communities, which ultimately results in the unnecessary harms and deaths of Black and brown people.”

And the Black community knows best how to protect itself — the Second Amendment.

As proof is Erin Hart, a recently divorced African American mother of two and a self-described Democrat.

“My nightmare scenario would be being at home alone, middle of the night, and just myself and, you know, the boys, and someone coming in to harm us,” she said. “When things start to hit a little closer home it kind of makes you sit up and think about it.”

When the Rasmussen respondents were asked to predict the future, 57% of them believed it unlikely that Congress will approve new, more stringent gun control laws, as opposed to 34% who believed they would.

On Feb. 27, 1968, “The CBS Evening News” popular anchor Walter Cronkite criticized then-President Lyndon Johnson’s handling of the Vietnam War.

When the newscast was over, Johnson reportedly turned off the TV, turned to an aide and said, “If I’ve lost Cronkite, I’ve lost Middle America.” At that moment, and on that basis, he decided that he wouldn’t seek another term as president.

So too, if Biden has lost Middle America, the NAACP, and Black Democrats like Erin Hart, he’s already lost his battle to strangle the rights of law-abiding gun-owners.

But unlike Johnson, he won’t realize it until after his defeat — and maybe not even then. He’ll blame it all on the Republicans.