The July 20 mass shooting in a Colorado movie theater that left 12 people dead and 58 injured has not significantly changed the way Americans view gun regulation, according to a national poll published Monday by the Pew Research Center.
The poll showed that 47 percent of the people surveyed said that regulating gun ownership was more important than gun rights, compared with 45 percent of those who said that protecting the ability of Americans to own guns was more important.
The findings of the poll, which surveyed 1,010 people July 26-29, were similar to those of a poll in April. In that survey, 45 percent said they would make gun control a priority, compared with 49 percent who said they would favor gun rights.
Other recent mass shootings also did not shift public opinion on gun regulation. The research center noted that there was no significant change in the balance of opinion about gun rights and gun control after six people were killed and 10 wounded in January 2011 in Arizona, including Representative Gabrielle Giffords, who was shot in the head.
“Nor was there a spike in support for gun control following the shooting at Virginia Tech University, in April 2007, †the center's report said.
On Monday, James E. Holmes, the suspect in the Colorado shooting who is said to have used three guns in the deadly rampage, made his second court appearance. My colleagues Jack Healy and Dan Frosch reported that Mr. Holmes did not show any emotion as he learned during the hearing that he faces 142 criminal charges and the possibility of the death penalty.
In Denver, gun store owners saw a surge in people wanting to buy guns immediately after the shooting. The Denver Post reported that there was a 43 percent increase in the number of people seeking background checks for gun purchases in the three days after the shooting compared with the p revious weekend.
Public opinion on gun control has been deeply divided since 2009, said the Pew Center, which has been conducting polls on this issue since 1993. Until then, the center said that people had consistently ranked regulating guns higher than protecting rights of gun owners.
Gallop has been asking about handgun bans since 1956. It published a graph showing a steady decline over the years in support for a handgun ban, reaching a record low of 26 percent in October 2011. That same Gallop poll also found that 53 percent of those polled said they favored a ban on assault weapons.
The most recent Pew Center survey showed that positions on gun control follow the partisan divide, with Democrats favoring more gun regulation 72 percent to 21 percent while Republicans support gun rights 71 percent to 26 percent. There is also a gender divide, with more men than women favoring gun rights over gun regulation.
The poll, conducted using landlines and ce llphones nationwide, has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus 4 percentage points.
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