90% Held to Back Waiting Period

PRINCETON N.J. — More than nine out of 10 Americans support a proposed law that would require a seven-day waiting period before purchase of a handgun, a Gallup poll shows.

Americans generally follow a pattern of favoring specific restrictions on gun ownership--such as the proposed waiting period--but resisting an outright ban. Although two-thirds of Americans agree that gun control laws should be stricter than they are, only 43% favor a prohibition on handgun ownership by private citizens.

The results are based on telephone interviews with a randomly selected national sample of 1,010 adults, 18 and older, conducted March 21 to 24, 1991. The survey has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.