A new Harvard Center for American Political Studies/Harris poll is bad news for gun control activists, with the survey finding the vast majority of respondents don’t want to live in states with stricter gun control laws.

According to the online poll of slightly more than 2,000 American adults, progressive policies like restrictive gun control laws aren’t popular at all among most of us, and Joe Biden gets low marks for his handling of violence and crime as well. Just 37% of respondents say they approve of Biden’s efforts, with an anemic 17% strongly approving compared to 42% who strongly disapprove.

Some of that disapproval undoubtably comes from anti-gunners who are disappointed that Biden hasn’t tried to ban so-called assault weapons via an executive order or think that he could be doing more, but I don’t think that accounts for the bulk of those who disagree with Biden’s anti-gun agenda, especially with 66% of survey respondents telling pollsters they’d prefer to live in a state that doesn’t treat their right to keep and bear arms as a criminal offense.

• 64% of voters say they would want to live in a state that cuts taxes, encourages public charter schools, does not allow gender surgery for minors, and restricts most abortions after six weeks.
• By contrast 66% of voters – including a majority of all parties – say they would not want to live in a state that has increasing taxes, restricts legal gun ownership more strictly, allows abortion up to 9 months, allows minors to get gender surgery without parental permission, encourages undocumented immigrants, and allows felons to vote.

The poll isn’t all good news for gun owners and Second Amendment advocates, however. While the Harvard CAPS/Harris survey found broad opposition from respondents when it came to living in states with a laundry list of progressive policies that includes gun control, when respondents were asked specifically about whether their home state should place more restrictions on gun ownership, loosen current laws, or keep them the same 54% said they would prefer more gun laws. Another 20% said the current laws should be relaxed, while 26% preferred to keep the status quo in place.

In fact, according to the survey, gun control is probably the most popular of the Democrats’ policies at the moment. Just 37% of those surveyed, for instance, believed that illegal immigrants should be able to obtain driver’s licenses in their states, while only 23% said they want to see their state adopt laws allowing minors to undergo gender reassignment surgery and be prescribed medications to delay the onset of puberty without parental permission.

One big issue with the survey is the lack of specific gun control policies, with respondents only asked if they would like to see “greater restrictions on gun ownership”. That’s a pretty broad, vague statement that could encompass everything from increased penalties for illegal gun possession to bans on commonly-owned firearms. It would have been nice if the Harvard/Harris pollsters drilled down a little deeper, or asked survey respondents to choose between “greater restrictions on gun ownership” and “stricter enforcement of current laws”, but the survey’s results suggest at the very least that Second Amendment advocates still need to be reaching out and talking to non-gun owners about the realities of gun control’s repeated failures to bring down violent crime.

Given the slanted coverage of the gun control debate on the part of the legacy media, which routinely ignores armed citizen stories while giving a lot of time and attention to violent crime, I’m not exactly shocked that 54% of respondents think the gun laws in their state should be more restrictive, and it’s encouraging that gun control doesn’t appear to be a dealbreaker, even for those who want new laws in place. Given the choice between a generally conservative approach to government and a generally progressive set of policies, the vast majority of those surveyed would rather live in a red state. That’s good news for Republicans, but it’s still a sign that gun owners and 2A advocates can’t just talk to ourselves or else we’re going to see more politicians like Tennessee Gov. Bill Lee call for “reasonable” restrictions on gun owners in an effort to curry favor with voters.