Gun Control Misconceptions

Guest: Benjamin Miller, PhD Student in Political Science at Yale  America has a conflicted relationship with guns. The right to own them is enshrined in our Constitution and vigorously defended by politicians. Efforts to pass stricter gun laws over the last several years have failed repeatedly, even amid public outcry over mass shootings like the Sandy Hook Elementary tragedy. There is a mysterious disconnect in public opinion: Numerous national polls conducted last year by Quinnipiac University, Gallup and the Pew Research Center found 90 percent of Americans – that’s virtually all of us – support a law that requires universal background checks on all gun buyers – including private sales between people, online buyers and at gun shows, which are currently exempt from background checks. But only about half of Americans say they favor stricter gun laws. So which is it? Do we want stricter laws or not? That’s the question political science researchers at Yale University have been puzzling over. They conducted their own national survey to try and figure it out.