National Public Radio has some surprising news for those who assume young people support gun control:
High school students across the United States have been leading the call for more gun control since the school shooting in Parkland, Fla.
Some have called them the “voice of a generation on gun control” that may be able to turn the tide of a long-simmering debate.
But past polling suggests that people younger than 30 in the U.S. are no more liberal on gun control than their parents or grandparents — despite diverging from their elders on the legalization of marijuana, same-sex marriage and other social issues.
“Sometimes people surprise us, and this is one of those instances that we don’t know why,” says Frank Newport, editor-in-chief of Gallup.
Over the past three years, his polling organization asked the under-30 crowd whether gun laws in the U.S. should be made more strict, less strict or kept as they are now. On average, people between the ages of 18 and 29 were 1 percentage point more likely to say gun laws should be more strict than the overall national average of 57 percent.
“Young people statistically aren’t that much different than anybody else,” Newport says.
Polling by the Pew Research Center last year came to similar conclusions: 50 percent of millennials, between the ages of 18 and 36, said gun laws in the U.S. should be more strict. That share was almost identical among the general public, according to Kim Parker, director of social trends research at Pew.
Pew did find significant differences between millennials and older generations on two gun control proposals — banning assault-style weapons and high-capacity ammunition magazines that hold more than 10 rounds. The results showed that a greater share of millennials — both Republicans and Democrats — are more conservative when it comes to those bans compared with Generation Xers, baby boomers and members of the silent generation.
“What we’re hearing now in the immediate aftermath of Parkland might not be representative of what a whole generation feels,” Parker says.
To be clear, many demographers argue that millennials make up one part of today’s generation of young people. Some say that millennials include people born in the 1980s and all the way through 2000.
The teenage high school activists who have been organizing since the Florida shooting, they say, are part of a separate group some call “Generation Z.” Pollsters generally don’t count the views of those under 18, so there probably won’t be national polling on this group until more of these young people are officially adults.
Still, for 19-year-old Abigail Kaye, who considers herself a millennial, these polling results about her peers come as a shock.
“I think that’s surprising because I feel like we’re a more progressive generation,” says Kaye, who attends the University of Delaware.
Kaye says she remembers hearing about the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Conn., when she was growing up about a couple hours away in Scituate, R.I.
“We’ve grown up more, I think, with this kind of gun violence, so you’d think maybe we’d push for more regulations,” she adds.
The poll findings also surprised some members of Students for the Second Amendment, a club at the University of Delaware.
The club’s treasurer, Jordan Riger of Lutherville, Md., 22, says that after taking an National Rifle Association course on pistol shooting when she was 18, she has seen firearms as tools for self-defense. But she thinks many of her millennial peers don’t.
“We are living in a time right now where we’re seeing a lot more of these mass casualties,” Riger says. “I think when people don’t know that much about firearms, when they see it on the news used in horrible fashion, that’s like all they associate it with.” …
Still, 22-year-old Jeremy Grunden of Harrington, Del., says he is encouraged to hear that millennials are less likely to support banning assault-style weapons.
“I base what we need off of what the military has,” says Grunden, who is president of Students for the Second Amendment at the University of Delaware. “When it comes to … the Second Amendment, we’re supposed to be a well-armed and well-maintained militia and all that. Quite frankly, we need that and plus more.”
The Second Amendment Foundation (SAF) gun rights group is based in Bellevue, Washington. Since the Florida shooting fallout has targeted 18 to 20 year olds, their membership has grown by 1,200 percent in that age range. It doesn’t bode well for gun bills that target ordinary young adults. And nobody pressured them into joining the SAF, they just did it because they realized their rights were being trampled.
A statement released by SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan Gottlieb read:
Since the tragic mass shooting at a Florida high school last month resulted in efforts to restrict firearms ownership by young adults, the Second Amendment Foundation has experienced a 1,200 percent increase in the number of 18- to 20-year-olds joining or supporting the organization, SAF founder and Executive Vice President Alan M. Gottlieb reported today.
“We normally don’t get that many members or donors in that age group,” Gottlieb noted, “since the gun rights movement typically trends toward older Americans. But the 18- to 20-year-olds have never been specifically targeted before, and they are obviously alarmed. This influx of young Americans into the gun rights movement is important, not just to respond to the current gun control threat, but as the movement has gotten older, it is encouraging to see so many young adults getting involved in support of Second Amendment rights.
“SAF has always conducted leadership training conferences,” he continued, “but now we’ll increase our emphasis on a younger audience, to integrate them into leadership roles.”
Gottlieb became aware of the spike in younger memberships after three weeks of almost non-stop news and editorializing about preventing young adults from buying firearms, especially modern sporting rifles. The issue really intensified after legislation was signed in Florida to raise the age limit on firearms purchases, and at least two national chains imposed their own restrictions.
“It’s important to note,” Gottlieb said, “that this interest surge has been organic on the Internet. SAF did nothing special to make it happen. They have really done this on their own, finding us on the Internet and following up.
“I want young adults in the 18-to-20 age group to know they are welcome in the gun rights movement,” he stressed. “While the media has paraded high school students to push a gun control agenda, the age group that is now being targeted by that effort is energizing, and showing that there is another side to this controversy.”
As you have seen on our page, there have been numerous young people who are standing against the pressure to “perform” for the gun control crowd. They have endured ridicule, bullying, school sanctions, and extreme peer pressure, only to make them more energized. As the push to destroy the rights of 18-to 20 year olds gains steam, so is the pushback from not only that age group but even younger of high school age. If the anti-gunners continue their attempts, there will be severe consequences, guaranteed.
If you are not mature enough to own a rifle at 18, but you are old enough to carry one into battle…there is something extremely wrong with our nation’s leadership. Destroying the rights of young men and women who are legal adults is one of the most unconstitutional actions conceived.
Steve Prestegard.com: The Presteblog 
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