Majority of Americans -- gun owners and non-gun-owners -- support stronger gun laws

stigma or discouraging people from seeking treatment,” added Barry.

The results of both surveys are summarized in “After Newtown – Public Opinion on Gun Policy and Mental Illness,” published online on 28 January in the New England Journal of Medicine.

Gun violence claims 31,000 U.S. lives each year in the United States, and the rate of firearms homicides in America is twenty times higher than it is in other economically advanced nations.

Johns Hopkins researchers conducted this study using the survey research firm GfK Knowledge Networks. There were 2,703 respondents in the gun policy survey and 1,530 respondents in the mental illness survey.

“Not only are gun owners and non-gun-owners very much aligned in their support for proposals to strengthen U.S. gun laws,” said co-author Daniel Webster, Sc.D., MPH, director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research, “but the majority of NRA members are also in favor of many of these policies.”

The survey found that 74 percent of NRA members support requiring universal background checks for all gun sales; 64 percent of NRA members support prohibiting people who have been convicted of two or more crimes involving alcohol or drugs within a 3-year period from having a gun, and 70 percent of NRA members want a mandatory minimum sentence of two years in prison for a person convicted of knowingly selling a gun to someone who is not legally allowed to own one.

“These data indicate that the majority of Americans are in favor of policy changes that would ultimately increase safety,” said Jon Vernick, J.D., MPH, co-director of the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research and a co-author of the study.  “This consensus should propel forward comprehensive legislation aimed at saving lives.”

The publication of these surveys in the New England Journal of Medicine follows the Summit on Reducing Gun Violence in America: Informing Policy with Evidence and Analysis convened at Johns Hopkins University earlier this month (see summit recommendations here). Ten days following the Summit, the Johns Hopkins University Press published Reducing Gun Violence in America: Informing Policy with Evidence and Analysis, a book that summarizes the research, analysis, and recommendations from the two-day meeting.

— Read more in Colleen L. Barry et al., “After Newtown — Public Opinion on Gun Policy and Mental Illness,” New England journal of Medicine (28 January 2013) (DOI: 10.1056/NEJMp1300512); and Daniel W. Webster and Jon S. Vernick, eds., Reducing Gun Violence in America: Informing Policy with Evidence and Analysis (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 2013)