On December 14, 2012, Adam Lanza opened fire at his home and Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, leaving 28, including his own mother and 20 children, dead. In the aftermath, gun control advocates pushed local, state, and federal lawmakers to restrict access to guns.
But nearly two years after the Newtown shooting, support for gun rights appears to be at a two-decade high.
A new survey of 1,507 US adults from the Pew Research Center on gun control attitudes found that 52 percent say it's more important to protect the rights of Americans to own guns and 46 percent say it's more important to control gun ownership. As Pew explained, this is a substantial shift from public opinion in the immediate aftermath of the Newtown shooting.
The shift appeared to occur among most analyzed demographics. Between December 2012 and December 2014, white, black, male, and female Americans became more likely to say gun ownership protects people more than it harms them. Only liberal Democrats saw a shift in the opposite direction.
Read more: Think school shooters are usually bullied and unpopular? You're wrong.
