Gun control activists insist Americans are demanding more restrictions on their Second Amendment rights. Americans increasingly appear to have other ideas.
A new Rasmussen Reports survey found just 48 percent of likely U.S. voters believe the country needs stricter gun control laws, down from 51 percent in October 2024. Another 43 percent disagree.
That’s not the overwhelming public mandate gun control groups and their political allies regularly claim. It’s not even a majority.
More importantly, it follows a trend the industry has witnessed and NSSF has documented for years. As millions of Americans have become first-time firearm owners, learned firsthand how firearms operate and experienced the laws already imposed on exercising their Second Amendment rights, support for more gun control has steadily lost ground.
Numbers Don’t Lie
Rasmussen surveyed 1,087 likely voters asking three questions: “Does the United States need stricter gun control laws? Which would do more to reduce gun violence in America, passing new gun control laws or stricter enforcement of existing gun control laws? Would you vote for a congressional candidate who promised to completely ban semi-automatic and assault type weapons?”
52 percent of voters believe enforcing current laws would curb firearm-related crime — a two-point increase from September 2025 — while 34 percent said passing new legislation would be more effective.
Only 48 percent of voters believe stricter gun control laws are necessary — down from 51 percent in October 2024 — while 43 percent disagree and nine percent remain undecided.
Following those same lines, a mere 46 percent of voters said they would vote for a congressional candidate who promised to completely ban semiautomatic and “assault type weapons,” or Modern Sporting Rifles (MSRs).
The last question is also revealing for another reason. Semiautomatic firearms aren’t some narrow category of exotic firearms. These are commonly owned rifles, pistols and shotguns that discharge one bullet per trigger pull. Lumping semiautomatic firearms together with the politically invented terminology of “assault type weapons” obscures just how sweeping such a proposed ban would actually be.
Unfortunately for gun control advocates, even with questions framed so broadly, support for stricter gun control is below 50 percent.
We’ve Seen This Before
This isn’t an outlier. NSSF highlighted Gallup polling in 2024 showing support for reinstating a federal ban on so-called “assault weapons” had fallen to 52 percent. That was down from 55 percent in 2022 and 61 percent when Gallup first asked the question in 2019.
An ABC News/Washington Post poll in 2023 was even worse news for gun control advocates. That survey found just 47 percent supported a national ban while 51 percent opposed one.
Go back further and the direction remains clear.
NSSF reported in 2022 that Gallup found support for stricter gun laws had fallen nine percentage points in just months, from 66 percent in June to 57 percent. In 2021, Quinnipiac polling put support at just 45 percent.
One poll can be dismissed. A recurring trend across different polling organizations and several years is considerably harder to wave away.
There’s a reason the political sales pitch is getting harder.
Americans aren’t merely hearing about firearms from politicians, gun control groups and television commentators anymore. They’re buying them, training with them and understanding for themselves what exercising the Second Amendment actually entails.
That includes MSRs, among the most popular-selling semiautomatic rifles in America. NSSF’s most recent data estimates there are more than 32 million MSRs in circulation and remain the most popular selling centerfire rifle in America. That makes them more common than Ford F-150s on the road today (the most popular selling pickup truck in America).
That matters when politicians insist these commonly owned rifles must be banned.
An American being told an MSR is too dangerous for civilians increasingly knows better because that American may own one. It is lawfully used for recreational target shooting, competition, hunting and home defense.
Familiarity has a way of cutting through political rhetoric.
NSSF noted exactly that following Gallup’s 2024 polling. As firearm ownership expanded and millions of Americans became more familiar with MSRs and the laws governing firearms, public attitudes changed along with that experience.
The numbers continue to bear it out.
A Message Politicians Should Hear
The Second Amendment doesn’t depend on polling. Constitutional rights aren’t determined by majority vote and they don’t disappear when approval ratings change.
Politicians, however, pay very close attention to polls.
Those demanding bans on commonly owned semiautomatic firearms, additional restrictions on lawful firearm purchases and still more laws burdening those who obey them should pay attention to this one.
Americans have heard the gun control pitch. They’ve watched politicians repeatedly promise that the next restriction will finally be the one that stops criminals from breaking laws. Millions have also become firearm owners themselves and discovered who actually bears the burden of those restrictions.
Now fewer than half of likely voters tell Rasmussen the country needs stricter gun control.
Gun control activists can keep insisting Americans want more. Polling results repeatedly insist otherwise.
– Larry Keane
Larry Keane is SVP for Government and Public Affairs, Assistant Secretary and General Counsel of the National Shooting Sports Foundation.
