News Americas, NEW YORK, NY, Fri. Mar. 22, 2013: In a week when Senate Majority Leader, Harry Reid, did an about face on guns, saying the ban on assault rifles had no chance of passage but yesterday saying he will introduce gun control legislation that includes a proposal for universal background checks, a new poll among Haitians in the Diaspora has found that many support tougher gun control.
AudioNow, a leading call-to-listen mobile phone platform in the United States, said its multilingual survey among U.S. Haitian Creole speakers on the issue found that 9 out of 10 listeners favor stricter gun control laws in the United States.
Interestingly, the survey done by Hart Research Associates in Washington for AudioNow, found that Creole-speaking listeners concerned with crime and violence support stricter gun controls almost unanimously. Nearly 90 percent favor a ban on assault weapons, the poll, done with Radio Kiskeya’s U.S.audience between February 14-21st, found.
The survey comes just months after the Sandy Hook shooting that took place on December 14, 2012, when Adam Lanza, 20, fatally shot twenty children and six adult staff members in a mass murder at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Connecticut.
Of 405 interviews conducted, nearly 60 percent of the Haitians were eligible to vote in 2012, and a full 81 percent of the respondents reported actually voting – approximately 10 percent higher than the national average in recent presidential elections.
Meanwhile, asked the community was split about the issue of greatest concern to them. One third reported immigration as their community’s top issue, followed by more than a fourth of listeners, (28 percent), said it is the lack of jobs, and 16 percent said crime.
Radio Kiskeya, based in Port-au-Prince, broadcasts to mobile phones in the U.S. through the AudioNow platform.
Meanwhile, Reid last night said: “Later tonight, I will start the process of bringing a bill to reduce gun violence to the Senate floor. This bill will include the provisions on background checks, school safety and gun trafficking reported by the Judiciary Committee. I hope negotiations will continue over the upcoming break to reach a bipartisan compromise on background checks, and I am hopeful that they will succeed. If a compromise is reached, I am open to including it in the base bill. But I want to be clear: in order to be effective, any bill that passes the Senate must include background checks.”
