Half of all Americans support banning non-citizen Muslims from entering the United States temporarily, and three in five back stricter gun control laws, according to an NBC News/SurveyMonkey poll.
Yet the online poll, conducted June 13-15 among a sample of just over 4,300 adults, found that Americans’ top concerns were still jobs and the economy, more so than terrorism or immigration.
Last weekend’s massacre in Orlando revived the gun debate, but presumptive GOP nominee Donald Trump added a renewed call for restrictions on Muslim immigration to the controversy. The gunman, Omar Mateen, was a Muslim of Afghan descent but was born and raised in the United States.
Some 28 percent of poll respondents said they “strongly support” a temporary ban on Muslim immigration, while 22 percent “somewhat support” it. There were 30 percent who were strongly opposed. The ban has been a cornerstone of Trump’s insurgent campaign.
On the gun control front, 61 percent expressed strong or some support for stricter laws; 60 percent backed a ban on the sale of semi-automatic weapons to some degree. Forty-two percent said the government was doing “very” or “somewhat” well reducing the threat of terrorism – down from 45 percent last November and 62 percent in April 2015.
Even with the attack in Orlando, though, 29 percent says “jobs and the economy” mattered most to them, against 24 percent for terrorism and just 7 percent for immigration.
The survey results have an error estimate of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.
