{"id":85883,"date":"2022-09-23T01:45:16","date_gmt":"2022-09-23T06:45:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=85883"},"modified":"2022-09-23T01:45:16","modified_gmt":"2022-09-23T06:45:16","slug":"85883","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=85883","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Poll: Majority of Texans Reject \u2018Assault Weapons\u2019 Ban<\/a><\/p>\n

\u201cHell no.\u201d<\/p>\n

That\u2019s what Texans appear to be saying about the idea of banning AR-15s and AK-47s, according to\u00a0a new poll<\/a>. 50 percent of likely voters told Spectrum News and Siena College they oppose efforts to ban \u201cassault-style\u201d weapons, a term the poll did not define but is generally understood to include the rifles. In contrast, 46 percent said they support a ban. An equal number \u201cstrongly\u201d opposed and supported the policy.<\/p>\n

Beto O\u2019Rourke (D.) has based much of his campaign against incumbent Governor Greg Abbott (R.) on the need for further gun restrictions in Texas. He is best known for his viral commitment to seize the guns Texans told the pollsters they don\u2019t want to see banned.<\/p>\n

\u201cHell yes, we\u2019re going to take your AR-15, your AK-47,\u201d O\u2019Rourke said during a September 2019 presidential primary debate. \u201cWe\u2019re not going to allow it to be used against our fellow Americans anymore.\u201d<\/p>\n

And, while he has been\u00a0consistently<\/a>\u00a0inconsistent<\/a>\u00a0on whether he stands by his famous call for confiscation, he has\u00a0continued to advocate for stricter gun laws<\/a>.<\/strong><\/p>\n

\u201cFive of the worst mass shootings in U.S. history have taken place in this state in the last five years on Greg Abbott\u2019s watch,\u201d O\u2019Rourke said in an ad featuring a Uvalde shooting survivor that was\u00a0posted to his social media<\/a>\u00a0on Tuesday. \u201cThose kids were not just up against that gunman and that AR-15 and those high-impact, high-velocity rounds that hit their body; they were up against a governor who would not lift a finger to prevent this from happening.\u201d<\/p>\n

The focus on gun control hasn\u2019t benefited O\u2019Rourke much in the polls, though. While the Siena poll found Texans were open to some new gun-control policies, with 85 percent supporting universal background checks, Abbott still holds a substantial lead in the race. Siena found 50 percent of respondents support Abbott while 43 percent support O\u2019Rourke, moving Abbott\u2019s lead in\u00a0the\u00a0Real Clear Politics<\/em>\u00a0average<\/a>\u00a0of the race down slightly to 7.5 percent.<\/p>\n

O\u2019Rourke hasn\u2019t become any less brash in his approach either. He has crashed a post-Uvalde press conference to\u00a0heckle Abbott<\/a>\u00a0and\u00a0cursed out<\/a>\u00a0a man for laughing during one of his stump speeches on the topic.<\/p>\n

The race\u2019s outcome will provide\u00a0a good guide<\/a>\u00a0for how American gun politics are playing out in the wake of a slew of major recent gun-related events. The Uvalde shooting and the first bipartisan federal gun restrictions in decades, combined with two years of recording setting gun sales and the Supreme Court setting a new standard for reviewing gun laws as it struck down restrictive gun-carry permitting regimes, have injected a lot of uncertainty into how the issue will impact voters\u2019 decisions in November. With O\u2019Rourke running on an aggressive gun-control platform against Abbott, who has signed several reforms that removed gun-carry and ownership restrictions, how the candidates fare may indicate where things have settled after those significant shakeups.<\/p>\n

The election results may also provide insight into the politics surrounding AR-15s and AK-47s in particular. O\u2019Rourke wants to confiscate them or, failing that, ban their sale to adults under 21. Abbott has opposed both ideas as unconstitutional. The fight in Texas mirrors the national one, with Democrats\u00a0recently passing<\/a>\u00a0an \u201cassault weapons\u201d ban through the House of Representatives despite opposition from all but two Republicans. The push to ban the popular rifles, estimated to be more than 24.4 million in circulation, has been\u00a0facing increasing headwinds<\/a>\u00a0even as they have been used in recent high-profile mass shootings. If Abbott can hold off O\u2019Rourke, it could pull further wind from the sails of those pursuing a ban.<\/p>\n

Another recent poll in the state provides a slightly brighter picture for O\u2019Rourke\u2019s confiscation plan. Support for \u201ca mandatory program where the government would buy back semi-automatic assault-style rifles from citizens who currently own them\u201d was 52 percent in the latest\u00a0Dallas Morning News<\/em>\u00a0and University of Texas at Tyler poll. However, respondents were more likely to strongly oppose the idea than strongly support it.<\/p>\n

As with the Seina poll, the confiscation scheme was the least popular gun policy polled. The\u00a0Morning News<\/em>\u00a0poll also found 55 percent of Texans support arming teachers, which O\u2019Rourke opposes and Abbott supports. That is in line with Seina, which found support at 53 percent.<\/p>\n

Seina\u2019s results on issue importance were also similar to a recent poll from\u00a0The Texas Tribune<\/em>\u00a0and the University of Texas.\u00a0The Tribune<\/em>\u00a0poll found Texans said guns were only the sixth-most-important issue in the race. Siena found it was the fifth behind economic issues, threats to democracy, immigration, and abortion.<\/p>\n

All three polls found Abbott maintained a significant lead over O\u2019Rourke.<\/p>\n

The Seina poll was conducted among 651 likely voters between September 14th and the 18th.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Poll: Majority of Texans Reject \u2018Assault Weapons\u2019 Ban \u201cHell no.\u201d That\u2019s what Texans appear to be saying about the idea of banning AR-15s and AK-47s, according to\u00a0a new poll. 50 percent of likely voters told Spectrum News and Siena College they oppose efforts to ban \u201cassault-style\u201d weapons, a term the poll did not define but … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-85883","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rkba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85883","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=85883"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85883\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85884,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/85883\/revisions\/85884"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=85883"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=85883"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=85883"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}