Millennials most likely to oppose assault weapons ban.

AR-15's for sale. AFP/The Guardian. 

A new survey has found that Millennials aged 18-34 are the most likely to oppose any new assault weapons ban. The Guardian. Support for the ban went up as the age went up, but Millennials are mostly divided. Experts speculate that support for "assault weapons" is due to video games and the fact that Millennials grew up around AR-15's and other rifles instead of the wood stock ones from previous generations. The assault weapon ban expired and was widely agreed to do very little to stop violence as rifles are rarely used in crime. 

My Comment:

I don't believe for a second that support for an assault weapons ban is anywhere near the level cited in this survey. Gun control is dead nationally and most people don't want it. Support for gun control does tend to spike after mass shootings, but I don't believe for a second that people actually want more laws. Maybe a ban on bump stocks, but nothing else, if people are told the truth in these surveys. 

Part of this is due to the way these surveys are produced. When people hear the words "assault weapons" they think something like a fully automatic M-16 or AK-47. They often don't realize that those weapons aren't assault weapons but are in fact assault rifles, which are de facto banned anyways. 

I also looked at the survey and the polling company didn't reveal the demographics of those polled. Without that information it is impossible to know what percentage of people were Republican or Democrat. It's also important to note that Qunnipiac mostly polls in blue states which will obviously change the results. My guess is that this was a very biased survey demographically, but without the information we can't know for sure. 

I am guessing if people were given an actual description of what an assault weapons ban would actually entail, very few people would actually support it. "Do you support and assault weapons ban?" has a totally different impact than "Do you support a ban on cosmetic, safety and utility features on rifles?" The survey never explained what an assault weapons ban actually is and what it actually would entail. 

Part of this too is just general ignorance on guns. People don't understand terms like "assault weapon", "semi-automatic", "suppressor", or even "magazine". People see an AR-15 and just assume that it has the same abilities as a M-16. The media usually doesn't do anything to educate people either. 

All of this is preaching to the choir for gun rights supporters. So why cover this biased survey? Because even it couldn't hide the fact that younger people are more into guns than older people. This survey confirms suspicions about younger people. They are more in favor gun rights.

I don't know if I buy the arguments that The Guardian tried to push to try and explain that. I do think that first person shooters have helped with younger people liking guns. Game series like Call of Duty and Battlefield do feature military weapons and a lot of people play these games. But just playing games doesn't really effect much of anything. Just like they don't make people more violent, I doubt they make people like guns.

I do think that living in a gun culture is part of it though. Unlike older generations, the mental image of what a gun has changed. In older generations when people thought of guns they thought of something like a hunting rifle. Now people think of AR-15's or handguns. They are extremely common and almost everyone has seen one in person now. 

But I think there is more to it than that. I think that younger people today are much more distrusting and savvy when it comes to the media. Unlike older people, the young do not just trust the media to tell them the truth. They actually look into things and understand that if the media is lying to them about everything else, they are probably lying to them about guns as well. 

I also think that mass shootings aren't that shocking to young people. Unlike older adults, we never remember a time where there weren't crazy people shooting up schools and concerts. For me, Columbine happened when I was still in school. The kids growing up today also happened to come to age at a time when ISIS was running amok throughout the world. 

I think that has changed the young psychologically. Instead of an aberration, they see mass shootings as just something that happens that you need to be prepared for. They also see mass shootings as a sub category of terror attacks in general. We have all seen bombings, stabbings and ramming attacks as well so we know damn well that banning guns won't stop the violence. 

Finally, I do think that people realize that owning guns can stop mass shootings. There have been several high profile cases that have been stopped by good guys with guns. The most recent one was stopped by a guy with the same rifle that would be banned by an assault weapons ban. Young people understand that terrorism will happen and they want to be able to defend themselves. 

None of this means that gun rights supporters can rest on their laurels. Gun rights will forever be threatened in this country and we can't just rely on the younger generations to preserve them. We will continue to have to work hard at educating them so we can defend our rights.