Polls show that police are highly supportive of gun rights and ownership in the United States. Internal member polls by police associations PoliceOne, in 2013, and the National Association of Chiefs of Police, in 2016, found members were highly supportive of armed citizens defending themselves and contributing to wider public safety efforts through the broad public possession of firearms.
Polling by Pew Research in 2017 found that police and the public were broadly in alignment in strongly supporting certain gun-control measures such as universal background checks and a federal database to track gun sales.