* From the Paul Simon Public Policy Institute’s latest poll…

Now that Illinois has passed a law allowing registered trained citizens to carry loaded handguns in public, do you feel more safe or less safe?

More safe 31.8%

Less safe 52.3%

Neither/about the same (VOL) 12.9%

Other/Don’t know 3.0%

* From the Institute…

Voters in the Chicago suburbs responded similarly to the statewide average, with 54.6 percent saying they felt less safe. Those in the City of Chicago were much more likely to say they felt less safe (64.5 percent). In downstate Illinois, opinion was evenly split, with 41.9 percent saying they felt more safe and 40.5 percent saying they felt less safe.

* The following results compare 2013 answers (first result) to the 2014 poll…

Gun Rights vs. Gun Control
What do you think is more important? Protecting the right to own guns, or controlling gun ownership?

Response 2013 2014

Protecting the right to own guns 31.3% 41.5%

Controlling ownership 59.5% 53.0%

Other/Don’t know 9.2% 5.6%

Exceptions to Concealed Carry
Do you believe there should be exceptions to allowing concealed weapons in public places—excluding them from such places as schools, college campuses, shopping malls, and movie theaters?

Response 2013 2014

Yes 71.3% 56.7%

No 20.7% 35.7%

Other/Don’t know 8.0% 7.6%

Armed Guards in Schools
Do you favor or oppose putting more armed guards or police in schools?

Response 2013 2014

Favor 46.3% 53.1%

Oppose 44.8% 38.3%

Other/Don’t know 8.8% 8.6%

* Methodology…

The 2014 Simon Poll interviewed 1,001 registered voters across Illinois. It has a margin for error of plus or minus 3.5 percentage points at the 95 percent confidence level. This means that if we were to conduct the survey 100 times, in 95 of those instances the results would vary by no more than plus or minus 3.5 percentage points from the results obtained here. The margin for error will be larger for demographic, geographic and response subgroups.

Live telephone interviews were conducted by Customer Research International of San Marcos, Texas. Cell phone interviews accounted for 30 percent of the sample. A Spanish language version of the questionnaire and a Spanish-speaking interviewer were made available. Customer Research International reports no Illinois political clients. The survey was paid for with non-tax dollars from the Institute’s endowment fund.