So much for vilifying the National Rifle Association in popular culture. A new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll released Thursday finds that the organization is more popular than the entertainment industry.
“Forty-one percent of adults see the NRA — the nation’s top gun lobby — in a positive light, while 34 percent view it in a negative light,” the poll reports.
“By comparison, just 24 percent have positive feelings about the entertainment industry, and 39 percent have negative ones.”
The NRA’s score is virtually unchanged from its 41 percent-to-29 percent rating in the January 2011 NBC/WSJ poll, nearly two years before the Newtown shootings.
“That seems to me to be a pretty remarkably stable figure,” says GOP pollster Bill McInturff, who conducted the survey with Democratic pollster Peter Hart.
The NRA also got some positive reflections elsewhere. A new CNN/Time/ORC survey conducted in mid-January found that nearly half of Americans —48 percent — “agree with the positions” of the group. Seventy two percent of Republicans and 28 percent of Democrats agreed.
