By: Anthony Morelli
Gun owners have high expectations for Donald Trump.
They are asking a lot from his administration.
And he should learn one key lesson about the Second Amendment after reading this poll.
Second Amendment freedoms are popular in America, and it is a strength, not a liability, for someone like Donald Trump to stand up for them against the anti-gun lobby.
This is clear from a recent poll which shows that Trump has a higher approval rating on guns than he does on most other hot-button issues.
While his approval rating on this issue is slightly in the negative, this likely reflects his own personal approval ratings, not his actual performance on the issue.
Despite it being slightly in the negative, he actually has more support on the gun issue than he does on foreign policy, the economy, or inflation, which are some of his core issues.
This should signal to Trump that he has the political capital to do more on the gun issues, instead of taking a hands-off approach.
It will be interesting to see if Trump reads this poll, and if he acts accordingly.
According to The Reload, “One of the first major polls to look at how Americans think President Donald Trump is handling gun policy early on in his second term found mixed results.
“On the one hand, more registered voters disapproved of how Trump is approaching the issue than approved. On the other hand, they gave him higher marks on guns than on most other issues.”
Trump should not be scared off by the negative number. He has to make a bold move on some issue, and it might as well be one of the issues that is near the top of the list.
He has shown that he’s not afraid to make unpopular moves on things like tariffs, and this poll shows that supporting the Second Amendment would actually be more popular than that.
The article continues, “Overall, 44 percent told Fox News he was doing a bad job with guns so far, while 41 percent said the opposite, and 15 percent said they were unsure. Trump won over 75 percent of Republican voters on the issue and lost 74 percent of Democrats. Independents swung against Trump’s handling of gun policy by 20 points, with 48 percent disapproving and just 28 percent approving.
“The poll is the first significant measure of how popular Trump’s handling of gun policy has been through his first three months in office. It suggests the issue, like the man, remains highly polarizing. It also shows guns are the issue voters have made up their mind on Trump the least, possibly because he’s taken a less aggressive approach on the issue than many of the others.”
This shows that there is an opportunity to take a more aggressive approach on guns than what he has done so far.
As this poll shows, it would be more popular with the general public than what he has done so far on tariffs or other issues.