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March 7, 2005

NIU poll finds Illinois favors assault weapon ban

DeKALB , IL – The demise of a series of gun control bills in the statehouse last week likely comes as a disappointment to most Illinois residents, say researchers from Northern Illinois University .

The recently released Illinois Policy Survey found that two-thirds of Illinois residents favored, at the very least, a ban on the manufacture, delivery and possession of semi-automatic assault weapons in Illinois .

Now in its 21st year, the Illinois Policy Survey is conducted by the NIU Center for Governmental Studies and the NIU Public Opinion Laboratory. The survey is designed to provide information on public attitudes, values and expectations with respect to the performance of elected officials and policy issues facing Illinois .

Support for an assault weapons ban was universally strong, cutting across boundaries of sex, age, race and political party. One demographic that impacted support, however, was geography.

Respondents in the northern half of the state were far more likely to favor such a ban (about 65 percent on average). In southern Illinois , that percentage dropped to 53 percent and in Central Illinois it dipped all the way to 40 percent. Central Illinois also had the highest number of those undecided on the topic – slightly more than 8 percent, better than double any other region in the state.

“Those differences may speak to cultural differences,” speculated Mike Peddle, a professor of public administration who was one of the researchers overseeing the survey. “Hunting is much more prevalent in those areas and guns are closely associated with that activity. Perhaps respondents in that area worried that talk of banning assault weapons could lead to other restrictions. Further north, people more readily associate guns with violence and are less likely to be bothered by the idea of more gun regulation.”

Despite the survey results, Peddle was not surprised to hear that gun control legislation before the statehouse floundered before getting out of committee.

“The gun lobby is very strong, and people who oppose gun control comprise a very vocal minority,” he says.

Such is the case nationwide, adds Barbara Burrell, associate director of NIU's Public Opinion Laboratory, who oversaw the study with Peddle.

“National surveys done last year by Roper found upwards of 70 percent of Americans favoring an assault weapon ban, but legislators did nothing to stop the old ban from expiring or to replace it,” she points out.

Digging into the details of the survey, researchers found that, in Illinois , support for a ban on assault weapons:

• Increased with educational attainment (83 percent of those with a graduate degree, versus 53 percent of those with a high school degree);
• Increased with wealth (78 percent of those making $100,000 or more, versus 60 percent of those making between $14,000 and $28,000);
• Was strongest amongst Jews (87 percent), Asians (72 percent) Democrats (72 percent) and women (67 percent versus 61 percent of men).
• Was weakest amongst those who self-identify themselves as politically conservative (52 percent) and Latinos (55 percent).

“One of the more interesting results was that 60 percent of Republicans and those who voted for George Bush supported the idea of an assault weapons ban,” says Peddle. “That debunks the conventional wisdom which often paints people in those groups as almost universally against gun control.”

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