A majority of California voters still believe gun controls help reduce crime and such laws outweigh Americans' rights to own guns, but the share is smaller than it was three years ago.
In the latest Berkeley IGS Poll, 56% of respondents said laws restricting the sale and possession of guns effectively reduce crime in their community. Meanwhile, 57% said gun controls are more important than Americans' Second Amendment rights.
Those majorities are smaller than April 2018, the last time the Berkeley IGS Poll asked California voters about their views on gun ownership.
At that time, 60% of California voters thought gun control laws were effective in reducing crime and 64% felt gun controls outweighed Americans’ rights to own guns.
Registered voters, expectedly, were largely split along partisan lines. Just 18% of Republicans felt controls were effective, compared to 79% of Democrats. While 81% of Democrats thought gun control laws were more important than Second Amendment rights, as opposed to 15% of Republicans.
A smaller share of Democrats and voters expressing no party preference expressed those sentiments than in 2018. Back then, 83% of Democrats and 59% of voters without a party preference thought gun control laws were effective in reducing crime. In 2021, those percentages fell to 79% and 53%, respectively.
Respondents were also split by party when asked if California’s law banning the sale of assault weapons was unconstitutional. A majority of those polled (56%) said no, including 79% of Democrats but only 17% of Republicans.
There were also pronounced geographic splits. While a majority of inland voters (52%) felt gun controls weren’t effective at reducing crime, a majority of voters from coastal areas (61%) thought they were.
However, a plurality of inland voters (46%) and a majority of coastal voters (61%) felt California’s ban on the sale of assault weapons was constitutional.
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