Support for stricter gun laws dips months after Parkland: poll

The number of Americans who support stricter gun laws has slipped in the months since a deadly shooting at a high school in Parkland, Fla., according to a new poll.

In a new poll published by Gallup on Wednesday, 61 percent of those surveyed said they support stricter laws on gun sales. That number is down 6 points from a March poll, taken just after the shooting, that left 17 dead, in which 67 percent of those surveyed said they supported tighter gun restrictions.

Despite the dip, the results from the Gallup poll still mark some of the highest numbers of public support for tougher gun laws in the past two decades.{mosads}

The survey found that Americans are largely split along party lines in their opinions on gun laws, with nearly nine in 10 Democrats saying they favor tougher gun restrictions, compared to just three in 10 Republicans.

Republican support for tougher gun laws has fallen 10 points since 41 percent of those surveyed said they favored it in March. The shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School sparked national protests over gun laws.

Support for gun restrictions was at its highest when Gallup first conducted the survey in 1990 when 78 percent of Americans said they favored tougher gun laws. After the Parkland shooting, support for tougher gun laws surpassed 60 percent for the first time in more than a decade.

The results of the poll published Wednesday were based on telephone interviews with 1,019 adults from Oct. 1-10. The poll has a margin of error of 4 percentage points.