Posted September 25, 2018 09:18:18 A new national survey of U.S. adults found a majority of Americans think the Orlando shooting is a hate crime.
But there are some differences between how Americans view the mass shooting.
For one thing, a majority say the shooting is either a hate incident or a hate group incident.
That is more than twice the share who say the attack was either random or committed by a stranger.
The survey also found that people in the U.K. are far more likely to say a hate-related attack was motivated by bias or a lack of empathy.
But they are also far less likely to be worried about whether there was a bias motive.
This suggests there may be an important gap in how Americans perceive hate crimes in the country and whether they are occurring in the right places.
What the survey found is that while about four-in-ten Americans say the Orlando incident was not a hate attack, that number drops to one-in.
Four-in.-ten Americans also say there was not enough evidence to determine whether the attack might be a hate case.
The same pattern holds for the perception of how many hate groups there are in the United States.
Americans are far less inclined to say there are more than four of them.
One in five say there is, though that number is down from about half a decade ago.
Still, Americans’ views of the number of hate groups are more negative than they were just two years ago, according to the survey.
The new survey also finds that a majority do not think the Pulse nightclub attack was committed by the Islamic State.
Americans also are more likely than Americans to say they think mass shootings like this are a normal part of American life.
Just 27 percent of Americans say they are generally happy about such shootings, a level that is more common among Republicans than Democrats.
The majority of those who say they generally do not approve of mass shootings are Democrats.
More people than Republicans also say they approve of the shooting.
Americans, by contrast, are far divided about how they feel about the Pulse shooting, according the survey, which has a margin of error of plus or minus 2 percentage points.
The study is the latest to find widespread anxiety about mass shootings, with both major political parties and some religious groups calling for greater measures to prevent such attacks.
This is especially true for Republicans, who are more fearful than Democrats and independents.
The poll was conducted Sept. 18-20 among 1,000 adults.
More News: Orlando shooting survey, Orlando, Fla.
– Orlando Sentinel/AP