70 percent of American prioritize laws reducing gun violence over gun rights: poll

Seven out of ten Americans said that new legislation reducing gun violence should be prioritized over protecting gun rights amid a particularly deadly string of mass shootings in the country, according to a new ABC/Ipsos poll. 

Twenty-nine percent of those surveyed said gun rights should be a higher priority than reducing gun violence in the country, according to the poll. 

Ninety percent of Democrats said lawmakers should prioritize laws focused on reducing gun violence, while 75 percent of respondents who identify as Independents said the same thing. 

However, 56 percent of Republican respondents said protecting the rights of gun owners guns is a higher priority. 

The new poll comes as the U.S. has seen a recent string of mass shootings in the past few weeks, with 10 killed at a grocery store in Buffalo, N.Y., 21 killed at an elementary school in Uvalde, Texas, and four killed at a hospital in Tulsa, Okla.

On Saturday, another four people were killed and 28 others were wounded in a string of mass shootings across the U.S.

In response to the recent wave of mass shootings, President Biden urged lawmakers last week to address gun violence by passing laws to expand background checks, implement a national red flag law system and ban the sale of assault-style rifles.

However, Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.), who is helping lead bipartisan gun reform talks in the Senate, said on Sunday that any potential deal on legislation would not include an assault weapons ban or “comprehensive” background checks.

“We’re not going to do everything I want,” Murphy told CNN “State of the Union” co-anchor Jake Tapper. 

“We’re not going to put a piece of legislation on the table that’s going to ban assault weapons, or we’re not going to pass comprehensive background checks,” he said. “But right now, people in this country want us to make progress. They just don’t want the status quo to continue for another 30 years.”

The ABC News/Ipsos poll was conducted from June 3 to 4 with a total of 542 respondents. The margin of error is 4.8 percentage points.