Americans back guns with strict ownership limits: Poll

Nearly seven in 10 Americans are in favour of strong or moderate limits to gun ownership after the mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, according to a Reuters/Ipsos poll.

However, laws allowing citizens to carry concealed weapons or use lethal force for protection while in public were just as popular, the poll found.

The Reuters/Ipsos poll, which was conducted online, with 1,477 Americans participating between 23 and 27 December, served to underline the difficult issues which US policymakers would need to come to grips with, to curb gun violence: though gun control laws are supported in the abstract, laws preserving specific gun ownership privileges also enjoy wide support.

The results of the poll come weeks after a 20-year old gunman, Adam Lanza, shoot his way into Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut. He went on to shoot 20 first graders and six school staff members using  a semi-automatic weapon.

He had killed his mother Nancy Lanza, in their home five miles away ahead of the school shooting and, as the police arrived on the scene, Lanza killed himself.

The incident comes as the second deadliest school shooting in US history after the 2007 massacre at Virginia Tech University in Blacksburg, Virginia, which claimed 32 lives.

The latest poll results reflected opinions expressed by Americans surveyed immediately after the Newtown massacre and differed sharply from Reuters/Ipsos polls conducted before it. The share of Americans supporting strong limits on gun ownership was up 8 percentage points to 50 per cent post the incident.

The poll's findings had a credibility interval, which is similar to a margin of error, of plus or minus 2.9 percentage points.