MEDIA POLL: More Americans Blame Mass Shootings on Mental Health Than Gun Laws
By Space Coast Daily // February 24, 2018
77 percent said better mental health monitoring and treatment would have averted shooting
SUNSHINE STATE NEWS – Far more Americans blame mass shootings on inadequate mental health care than blame such massacres on lax gun laws, according to a poll out this week from ABC News and the Washington Post.
Banning assault weapons — the alleged shooter in Parkland wielded a semiautomatic AR-15-style rifle — remains more divisive, with 50 percent in support, 46 percent opposed.
That’s almost identical to a 51-48 percent division in June 2016, after a gunman killed 49 at the Pulse nightclub in Orlando.
Results have ranged over time from a high of 80 percent support for an assault weapons ban in mid-1994 and a recent high of 58 percent in January 2013, to a low of 45 percent in late 2015.
In this poll, conducted in the wake of last week’s Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School shooting, respondents were asked if “this event could or could not have been prevented by” more effective mental health screening or treatment; stricter gun control laws; and allowing teachers to carry guns.
Fifty-eight percent of the 808 respondents said stricter gun laws could have prevented the shooting, but a larger portion, 77 percent, said better mental health monitoring and treatment would have averted it.
The poll did find that attitudes have shifted slightly in the past couple years. As compared to results from a 2015 ABC and Post survey, slightly fewer blame mental health screening, and slightly more blame the lack of adequate gun control laws. See the poll by clicking here.
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