While a majority of both men and women who participated in a new Gallup poll said they believe gun laws should be stricter in the U.S., even more women believe in stricter regulations.
According to the poll results released Friday, 62% of women want strict laws, compared to 51% of men. Additionally, men were twice as likely than women to actually own a gun at 43% compared to 22%.
However, Gallup said the “gender gap in gun-law preferences persists despite gun ownership status.”
This year has been filled with headlines about mass shootings in the U.S., prompting lawmakers – including President Joe Biden – to call for stricter gun legislation.
A massacre of elementary school children in Texas, mass shootings in Philadelphia, Buffalo and in the Chicago area, and the recent mass shootings at a Colorado LGBTQ+ nightclub and a Walmart in Virginia are just some of the gruesome shootings reported this year. According to the Gun Violence Archive, there have been 618 mass shootings in the U.S. so far this year and 36 mass murders.
Men have been more likely than women to own a gun in the U.S.
since at least 2007, said Gallup. Over the past 15 years, gun ownership among women has increased from the low teens to more than 20%.
Women were more likely (20%) than men (6%) to say that another member of their household owned a gun. Most women (56%) and nearly half of men (48%) said that there were no guns in their households.
Since Gallup began tracking Americans’ preferences for laws covering the sale of firearms in 2001, women have consistently said they would prefer stricter gun laws in the U.S.
“At the same time, no more than 51% of men have favored stricter laws, aside from a 56% reading in 2019,” said Gallup.
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