New Poll Shows Majority of Americans Support NRA's Plan to Put Armed Guards in Schools

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A new Pew Research Center poll suggests that 64 percent of Americans support the National Rifle Association's proposal of having armed guards in schools.

The NRA was criticized by politicians and media pundits alike when it suggested putting armed guards in schools to defend children against future shootings.

However, the poll also seems to indicate that there is still a lot of confusion surrounding so-called "assault weapons."

The Pew poll shows 55 percent of Americans supporting a "ban on assault style weapons." But in the same poll, an even bigger margin -- 58 percent -- supported a ban on "semi-automatic weapons." The problem is, so-called "assault weapons" are nothing more than semi-automatic rifles. A semi-automatic weapons ban would cover not only rifles but also many handguns (like the one pictured at the top of this story), which other polling has shown the majority Americans are against.

Still, as demonstrated in the graphic below, more Americans said they support a semi-automatic weapons ban than an "assault style weapons" ban. It could be that the two terms have been used interchangeably to demonize the "scary" looking guns by anti-gun advocates.

(Pew Center for the People and the Press)

"More than two-thirds (68%) of Americans agree that the constitutional right to own and carry a gun is as important as other constitutional rights," a previous survey found.

The Pew poll also found that 80 percent of people favored preventing people with mental illnesses from getting guns and 67 percent favored a federal database to track gun sales. Roughly 40 percent of those surveyed favored having more teachers and school officials carry guns at schools.

(H/T: Brett LoGiurato, Business Insider)