39% Say Community Watch Officers Should Be Allowed To Carry A Gun
Comedian Bill Cosby said recently that the Trayvon Martin case raised serious questions about community watch volunteers being allowed to carry guns. "We've got to get the gun out of the hands of people who are supposed to be on neighborhood watch,” Cosby said. "Without a gun, I don't see [George] Zimmerman approaching Trayvon by himself." Americans have mixed feelings about Cosby's analysis.
Thirty-nine percent (39%) of American Adults think volunteer community watch officers should be allowed to carry guns, according to a new Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey. Forty-six percent (46%) disagree and think these volunteers should not be armed. Fifteen percent (15%) are not sure. (To see survey question wording, click here.)
The survey of 1,000 Adults nationwide was conducted on April 11-12, 2012 by Rasmussen Reports. The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points with a 95% level of confidence. Field work for all Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion Research, LLC. See methodology.