Poll: After Charleston, a nation divided on the Confederate flag

WASHINGTON — In the wake of the church shootings in Charleston, the nation is split on whether the Confederate flag is a racist symbol that should be removed from public spaces, a USA TODAY/Suffolk University Poll finds.

Political leaders in South Carolina, Alabama and elsewhere have led efforts to take down the flag. But the survey finds no national consensus about that — the divide is 42%-42% on whether the flag is racist — and little hope that anything the United States government could do about guns would prevent mass shootings like the one that took nine lives at Emanuel African Methodist Episcopal Church.

"There is almost a thread of thinking running through the poll that nothing can be done to make any meaningful changes," says David Paleologos, director of the Suffolk University Political Research Center in Boston.

By 56%-40%, Americans say tighter gun-control laws wouldn't prevent more mass shootings. By 4-1, 76%-18%, they say easier access to guns wouldn't prevent them. And by 5-1, 78%-15%, they see little chance Congress will pass gun legislation in the foreseeable future.

The poll of 1,000 adults, taken by landline and cellphone from Thursday through Monday, has a margin of error of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

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"It doesn't make any difference if you have strict gun control or don't have it," says Frank Ziebarth, 64, of Whitewater, Wis., who was among those polled. "The bad guys are going to get hold of one. That's been going on forever and I don't think that's going to change."

Christine Thomas, 52, of Napa, Calif., disagrees. "Gun control laws need to be re-evaluated; they need to be enforced," she said in a follow-up interview. "I don't think it's a hopeless cause."

For most Americans, though, the debate seems to be done. By 52%-43%, those surveyed say they don't want gun control to be a significant subject in the 2016 presidential campaign.

Few see any real prospect of action by Congress on guns. Just 15% say the odds of gun laws being tightened are good or excellent. Another 25% call the chances fair, and a 53% majority assess them as poor.

The issues of gun violence and the Confederate flag have been thrown into sharp focus by the massacre of nine African-American worshipers at Bible study. The alleged shooter, 21-year-old Dylann Roof, said he hoped to spark a race war and posed in photos on social media with Confederate flags.

While the bloody assault has sparked outrage, opinions differ by region and race on what it represents and what should be done in response. More than half of whites call the assault the actions of a lone gunman in an isolated incident; just a third say it reflects a larger problem of racism in America. But among African-Americans, three of four say it reflects a larger problem of racism.

There is an equally wide gap in views of the Confederate flag. A third of whites call it racist; half say it represents Southern history and isn't racist. But more than three of four blacks see the Confederate flag as a racist symbol that should be taken down from public places. Just one in 10 say it's a representative of Southern heritage.

The margin of error for the sub-sample of 138 African-Americans is plus or minus 8.5 points.

Those in the South, the region where the Confederate flag is most common, are least likely to see it as racist. By 49%-34%, they say it's not. Those in the Northeast and West are most likely to call the flag as racist, by pluralities of 12 and 13 percentage points. In the Midwest, a narrow 44%-42% call it racist.

"It was a flag that was fought and died for," says Neal Masteller, 57, of Forksville, Pa., who sees no racist connotations and compares it to the Irish flag for Irish-Americans. "Nobody has problems with them. St. Patrick's Day comes around (and) they all want to put up the Irish flag."

Respondents in South Carolina, where the furor has been centered, express divided views. Danny Shields, 52, of Boiling Springs, S.C., dismisses the debate over the flag as "all just political pressuring and stance."

But Pamela Freiheit, 66, of Summerville, S.C., declares, "That flag must come down. It does not belong on any government building. It is not representative of who we are as a nation." She adds: "It is divisive; it is hateful, and I can't wait to see it gone."

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