John Lott: No, 90% Don't Want More Background Checks

Dr. John Lott has this piece over on the political page of Ingraham Media's LifeZette that does a pretty good job of debunking the gun ban lobby's oft repeated "90% of the public support universal background checks."  He uses things like the Washington State referendum that imposed background checks on all private sales to refute the claim.  For instance, after outspending opponents 50 to 1, the referendum only passed by 59%.  Yes, that is a sizable majority but it is well shy of 90%.

As for all those polls that the gun ban lobby cite for their talking points:

But these polls really ask little more than whether people want to stop criminals from obtaining guns. They don’t ask whether voters favor actual legislation that would actually impose background checks on the private transfer of guns.

It is a safe bet that if polls actually drilled down to who we would have to be doing background checks on in order to sell one of our privately owned firearms to a close friend, cousin, uncle, or neighbor, the poll results would not be anywhere close to 90%.