My colleague John Petrolino took a look at this new poll earlier today, but we’re going in for a deeper dive on today’s Bearing Arms’ Cam & Co with the Second Amendment Foundation’s Alan Gottlieb.

The SAF commissioned the poll by McLaughlin and Associates, but this isn’t some push poll. According to the survey’s results, 51% of respondents actually voted for Joe Biden, which is in line with the official election results from 2020. That makes some of the survey’s findings even more impressive, frankly.

According to poll, 66.1% of respondents agreed with the following statement: “When you see what is going on with Vladimir Putin and Russia’s military invasion of Ukraine, it is more important than ever for Americans to defend their Second Amendment constitutional freedoms for law abiding citizens to continue to have the right to own guns for thir personal protection.” Breaking that number down further, almost 45% of respondents “strongly” agreed with that sentiment, while only 14% strongly disagreed.

By a three-to-one margin, then, the Russian invasion of Ukraine really does appear to have caused some Americans to re-evaluate their position on the Second Amendment and to come to a newfound appreciation for the right to keep and bear arms. This will have an impact on the midterm elections in the fall, especially with support for Joe Biden’s anti-gun agenda underwater in the new McLaughlin survey.

Gottlieb points out that not only is Biden’s proposed gun ban unable to get 50% support from survey respondents, but there’s another discernable intensity gap on the issue. Once again, there are far more hard core opponents of Biden’s anti-gun agenda than die hard fans, which is good news for Second Amendment supporters and bad news for the Democrats hoping to convince Americans that we’ll all be safer once our Second Amendment rights are consigned to the dustbin of history.

The answers to that particular survey question also demonstrates the conundrum for Democrats; their desire for more gun control laws may be broadly unpopular with the electorate at large, but it’s still a big priority for self-identified Democrats. With Biden’s approval rating in the tank (41% in the McLaughlin poll) and Democrats trailing on the generic congressional ballot (44% of respondents said they’re more likely to vote Democrat compared to 48% who said they’re more likely to vote Republican), the left needs to figure out a way to attract more support from independent voters without alienating their base.

I don’t see any easy ways to do that, especially when it comes to Second Amendment issues. The Democrats are the party of gun control, and gun control just isn’t that popular with the American people these days. Even pulling a Beto and trying to back off previous demands for a gun ban isn’t likely to help. It certainly hasn’t done anything for Robert Francis “Beto” O’Rourke’s own poll numbers.

Be sure to check out the entire conversation with Alan Gottlieb in the video window above, which also touches on a number of other topics, including Washington State’s new magazine ban and the pending litigation challenging the constitutionality of the new law and how you can help fund the upcoming legal battle.