Mark Murray @ NBC:
As Washington prepares for a political battle over the Obama White House’s proposals to curb gun violence after the Newtown, Conn., shootings, a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll finds that the National Rifle Association 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.
By comparison, just 24 percent have positive feelings about the entertainment industry, and 39 percent have negative ones.
The NRA’s fav/unfav score is virtually unchanged from its 41 percent-to-29 percent rating in the Jan. 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 this survey with Democratic pollster Peter Hart.