Pew Research on Parties and Guns:
There is a partisan divide in gun ownership: More than four-in-ten Republicans and Republican-leaning independents are gun owners (44%), compared with 20% of Democrats and independents who lean Democratic.
There is also a partisan divide on views of gun policy, and these differences remain even after controlling for gun ownership. For example, Republican gun owners are much more resistant than Democratic gun owners to creating a database to track gun sales and banning assault-style weapons and high-capacity magazines. On the flip side, Republicans are also more open to proposals that would expand gun rights. A prime example: 82% of Republican gun owners favor expanding concealed carry laws to more places, compared with 41% of their Democratic counterparts.
Republican gun owners are about twice as likely as Democratic gun owners to say owning a gun is essential to their freedom (91% vs. 43%), and there are also behavioral differences between these two groups. For example, Republican handgun owners are more likely than their Democratic counterparts to say they carry their gun with them, even if only some of the time (63% vs. 45%). Fully 55% of Democrats who own a handgun say they never carry.
