Second Amendment and Gun Rights

Key Point Summary

American public opinion on basic gun rights presents an apparent paradox. Given a choice, Americans prioritize reducing gun violence over protecting gun rights. At the same time, there is plurality or majority agreement with specific Supreme Court decisions affirming Second Amendment protections for owning handguns.

  • When asked to choose between protecting gun rights and controlling gun violence as a priority, majorities or pluralities of Americans consistently favor gun violence control.
  • A majority of Americans across multiple surveys favored the 2022 U.S. Supreme Court Bruen decision, which held that the Second Amendment protects the right to carry a handgun outside the home.
  • At the same time, a significant minority of Americans report they have not heard enough about the Supreme Court decision to form an opinion, suggesting that views on these legal questions may be less settled than views on more concrete policy proposals.

Bottom line: Americans generally favor prioritizing gun violence control over gun rights. This response to a forced choice question parallels the fact that Americans simultaneously support the underlying principle of the basic right to own guns, particularly when the Constitution is invoked. Support for controlling gun violence in the abstract thus does not necessarily translate into severe restrictions on gun ownership. The majority of Americans believe that gun ownership is a constitutional right, but a right that should be reasonably regulated to reduce violence.

Availability of Data and Confidence in Conclusions

This assessment draws on 15 questions from 15 nationally representative surveys conducted between 2022 and 2025, with a total sample size of approximately 28,680. The evidence base is moderate, with a particularly strong tracking series on opinion about the 2022 Bruen ruling that supports confident conclusions for that specific question. However, questions assessing the relative priority of gun rights versus gun violence show sensitivity to how the choices are framed, which limits confidence in any single point estimate on that measure. Only one survey in our analysis asked about the Second Amendment and gun rights between 2025 and 2026, limiting the recency of conclusions overall.

Overall Confidence: FAIR.

Policy Implications

Policymakers advocating increased gun regulation will fit best with public opinion by focusing on arguments framing such actions as necessary to reduce gun violence. The gap between Americans' choice of giving priority to gun rights or the reduction of gun violence has narrowed, suggesting that Second Amendment arguments retain potential political salience.

Detailed Discussion

Support for Gun Violence Reduction

When asked to choose between prioritizing reducing gun violence or protecting gun rights, Americans generally choose the former.

  • Across multiple 2022 polls, the share of Americans prioritizing gun violence reduction in response to this forced choice question was always in the majority, ranging from 52% to 70%. [1, 2, 3]
  • More recent polling confirms this finding. In 2023, 60% of Americans said controlling gun violence was more important [4]. A 2025 survey found a similar result, with 59% prioritizing controlling gun violence. [5]
  • One 2024 survey counterposed protecting the rights of Americans to own guns against controlling gun ownership. This second alternative ("controlling gun ownership") is more muted than the option presented in other questions, which give a more specific reason ("reducing gun violence") as the alternative to protecting gun rights. The results find the public nearly evenly divided, with 51% prioritizing gun rights and 48% prioritizing controlling gun ownership. [6]

Mixed Views on Constitutional Gun-Rights Questions

The forced choice questions referenced above ask Americans about their relative priorities. But survey results also make it clear that Americans support the basic concept of the right to possess guns.

The Supreme Court's June 2022 Bruen decision held that the Second Amendment protects the right to carry a handgun in public for self-defense and struck down New York's requirement that applicants show a special need to obtain a concealed-carry license.

  • Before the ruling was issued, 43% of Americans favored the anticipated decision and 25% opposed it (March 2022) [7]. In May 2022, Americans favored such a decision by a 41% to 21% margin. [8]
  • The tilt towards support for the decision continued after it was handed down, including a July 2022 survey finding that 40% favored the decision and 31% opposed it (with a significant "don't know" response). [9, 10]

  • Support increased in the months that followed, with surveys conducted between November 2022 and October 2024 showing quite similar percentages favoring the decision—64% in November 2022 [11], 65% in September 2023 [12], 67% in November 2023 [13], 69% in August 2024 [14], and 70% in October 2024. [15]

Bottom line: Americans' views relating to the Constitutional right to possess guns are multi-dimensional. Americans clearly favor gun violence reduction as a broad priority, but they also lean toward support for Second Amendment rights allowing the possession of guns.

Impact of Question Wording and Other Survey Factors

Surveys over the years have included a variety of question wordings to describe gun policy alternatives, including "protecting gun rights", "protecting the right to own a wide variety of guns", "the Second Amendment", and "controlling gun ownership". The exact impact of these wording differences cannot be determined without controlled survey experiments. As one example, it is unclear if the 2022-to-2024 trend toward a more even split in gun rights vs. gun violence priority questions reflects genuine attitude change, shifts in question awareness, or both.

Opinions on the Bruen decision do not appear to be meaningfully affected by familiarity. In the March and May 2022 polls about the pending decision, roughly a third of respondents reported not having heard enough to form an opinion. By 2024, unfamiliarity had declined substantially. Despite these shifts, support among those with an opinion remained relatively consistent.

Trends Over Time

The percentage of Americans favoring prioritizing gun violence reduction versus protecting gun rights has fluctuated significantly over time, but with one exception, a plurality or majority has always favored the first alternative.

  • June 2022: 70% of Americans said enacting new laws to reduce gun violence should be the higher priority, compared with 29% who prioritized protecting the right to own a wide variety of guns.
  • June 2022: 58% of registered voters favored protecting citizens from gun violence over protecting gun rights.
  • July 2022: 52% favored controlling gun ownership over the 47% who favored protecting gun rights.
  • 2024: One outlier survey found the public nearly evenly divided, with 51% prioritizing gun rights and 48% prioritizing controlling gun ownership.
  • 2023: 60% favored controlling gun violence.
  • 2025: 59% favored controlling gun violence.

Americans' opinions of the Supreme Court's 2022 Bruen decision have been consistently favorable over time:

  • Prior to the ruling, relatively small pluralities of Americans favored the decision, with significant numbers saying they didn't have an opinion. (Before the ruling, 43% favored the anticipated decision in March 2022 and 41% favored it in May 2022, compared with 25% and 21% opposed, respectively.)
  • Immediately after the ruling, support remained higher than opposition: 40% favored the decision in July 2022 and 38% in September 2022, compared with 31% and 29% opposed.
  • Subsequently, support began to rise. By late 2022, support rose to clearer majority levels. In November 2022, 64% favored the ruling, and 35% opposed it. Support remained at similar levels thereafter, reaching 65% in September 2023, 67% in November 2023, 69% in August 2024, and 70% in October 2024.

Overall, these patterns reflect two distinct trends. First, the American public generally continues to prioritize reducing gun violence over gun rights, though the gap between these two alternatives narrowed from 2022 to 2024. Second, there was a consistently stable and favorable public reception of the Bruen ruling across eight measurement points from mid-2022 through October 2024.

Citations

  1. ABC News/Ipsos. (2022). Economic issues top the public's agenda. Fielded 6/3/22-6/4/22. Accessed via Roper Center for Public Opinion Research.
  2. Fox News/Beacon Research/Shaw & Co. Research. (2022). More voters put trust in Republicans to handle inflation, crime. Fielded 6/10/22-6/13/22. Accessed via Roper Center for Public Opinion Research.
  3. Pew Research Center/Ipsos. (2022). Broad Public Approval of New Gun Law, but Few Say It Will Do a Lot To Stem Gun Violence. Fielded 6/27/22-7/4/22. Accessed via Roper Center for Public Opinion Research.
  4. NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll. (2023). NPR/PBS NewsHour/Marist Poll National Adults May 2023. Fielded 5/15/23-5/18/23.
  5. NPR/PBS News/Marist Poll. (2025). NPR/PBS News/Marist Poll National Adults September 2025. Fielded 9/22/25-9/26/25.
  6. Pew Research Center/Ipsos. (2024). Cultural Issues and the 2024 Election. Fielded 4/8/24-4/14/24. Accessed via Roper Center for Public Opinion Research.
  7. Marquette Law School/SSRS. (2022). New Marquette Law School Poll National Survey Finds Two-Thirds of Public Support Confirming Ketanji Brown Jackson as a Supreme Court Justice. Fielded 3/14/22-3/24/22. Accessed via Roper Center for Public Opinion Research.
  8. Marquette Law School/SSRS. (2022). New Marquette Law School Poll Finds Sharp National Downturn in Overall Approval of U.S. Supreme Court Following Leaked Draft of Opinion That Would Overturn Roe. Fielded 5/9/22-5/19/22. Accessed via Roper Center for Public Opinion Research.
  9. Marquette Law School/SSRS. (2022). New Marquette Law School Poll National Survey Finds Little Change in Partisan Divisions and Motivations About Voting Following Supreme Court Abortion Decision. Fielded 7/5/22-7/12/22. Accessed via Roper Center for Public Opinion Research.
  10. Marquette Law School/SSRS. (2022). New Marquette Law School National Survey Finds a Third of the Public and Three-Fifths of Republicans Don't Believe Trump Had Secret Documents at Mar-a-Lago. Fielded 9/7/22-9/14/22. Accessed via Roper Center for Public Opinion Research.
  11. Marquette Law School/SSRS. (2022). New Marquette Law School Poll National Survey Finds Rise in Support for DeSantis Candidacy for President. Fielded 11/15/22-11/22/22. Accessed via Roper Center for Public Opinion Research.
  12. Marquette Law School/SSRS. (2023). New Marquette Law School National Survey Finds U.S. Supreme Court Approval Remains Below 50%. Fielded 9/18/23-9/25/23. Accessed via Roper Center for Public Opinion Research.
  13. Marquette Law School/SSRS. (2023). New Marquette Law School National Survey Finds U.S. Supreme Court Job Approval by Public Continues in Low 40s. Fielded 11/2/23-11/7/23. Accessed via Roper Center for Public Opinion Research.
  14. Marquette Law School/SSRS. (2024). New Marquette Law School Poll National Survey Finds Uptick in Approval of U.S. Supreme Court, but Disapproval Remains Above 50%. Fielded 7/24/24-8/1/24. Accessed via Roper Center for Public Opinion Research.
  15. Marquette Law School/SSRS. (2024). New Marquette Law School Poll National Survey Finds Approval of U.S. Supreme Court Edges Upward, but 55% Disapprove of the Court's Work. Fielded 10/1/24-10/10/24. Accessed via Roper Center for Public Opinion Research.

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