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As President Obama tries to persuade a reluctant Congress to pass new gun laws, the poll found that a majority of Americans — 54 percent — think gun control laws should be tightened, up markedly from a CBS News poll last April that found that only 39 percent backed stricter laws.

The rise in support for stricter gun laws stretched across political lines, including an 18-point increase among Republicans. A majority of independents now back stricter gun laws.

Whether the Newtown shooting — in which 20 first graders and 6 adults were killed — will have a long-term effect on public opinion of gun laws is hard to assess just a month after the rampage. But unlike the smaller increases in support for gun control immediately after other mass shootings, including after the 2011 shooting in Tucson that severely wounded Representative Gabrielle Giffords, the latest polling results suggest a deeper, and possibly more resonating, shift.

In terms of specific gun proposals being considered, the poll found even wider support, including among gun owners.

The idea of requiring background checks on all gun purchases, which would eliminate a provision that allows about 40 percent of guns to be sold by unlicensed sellers without checks, was overwhelmingly popular. Nine in 10 Americans would favor such a law, the poll found — including 9 in 10 of the respondents who said that there was a gun in their household, and 85 percent whose households include members of the National Rifle Association.

A ban on high-capacity magazines, like the 15-round and 30-round magazines that have been used in several recent mass shootings, was supported by more than 6 in 10, and by a majority of those who live in households with guns. And just over half of all respondents, 53 percent, said they would support a ban on some semiautomatic weapons.

After the mass shootings at Virginia Tech in 2007 and Tucson in 2011, polls found that 47 percent of Americans favored stricter gun laws.

"I'm from a rural area in the South, I grew up in a gun culture, my father hunted," Leslie Hodges, a 64-year-old graphic artist who lives in Atlanta and has a gun, said in a follow-up interview. "However, I don't believe being able to have a gun keeps you from thinking reasonably about changes that would keep someone from walking into a school and being able to kill 20 children in 20 seconds. I think that we can say, O.K., we want the freedom to have guns in this country, but there are rules we can all agree to that will make us all safer."

The poll also gave an indication of the state of play in Washington at the outset of what is expected to be a fierce debate over the nation's gun laws, as the National Rifle Association and several members of Congress, particularly Republicans in the House, have criticized the gun control measures that Mr. Obama proposed Wednesday and have vowed to block them.

Americans said that they trusted the president over Republicans in Congress to make the right decisions about gun laws by a margin of 47 percent to 39 percent, the poll found.

The National Rifle Association, the powerful gun lobby, is viewed favorably by nearly 4 in 10 Americans, the poll found. All told, 38 percent said that they had a favorable opinion of the group, while 29 percent had a negative view and the rest had no opinion. The N.R.A. was viewed positively by 54 percent of those with guns in their homes.

But the group is deeply unpopular with people in households without guns, who were twice as likely to have a negative view of the N.R.A. as a positive one: 41 percent of them expressed a negative view of it, while only 20 percent expressed a positive one.

The survey underscored how common guns in America are: 47 percent of those surveyed said that they or someone in their household owned a gun, and 31 percent had close friends or relatives who did. The top reasons cited for owning guns were protection and hunting.

The national telephone poll was conducted by land lines and cellphones from Jan. 11 to Jan. 15, before the president announced his proposals to curb gun violence. It surveyed 1,110 adults and has a margin of sampling error of plus or minus three percentage points.

Some gun owners, like Sally Brady, a 69-year-old retired teacher who lives in Amissville, Va., explained in follow-up interviews why they would support some restrictions on ammunition or more thorough background checks of all gun buyers.

"I see no reason for high-capacity magazines if you want to go hunting," said Mrs. Brady, an independent who owns a hunting rifle. "The purpose of hunting is sport, and you don't need a whole big bunch of bullets to shoot a deer or a squirrel. If you're that poor of a shot, stay out of the woods."

Despite the higher support for stricter gun laws, many Americans do not think the changes would be very effective at deterring violence. While most Americans, 53 percent, said stricter gun laws would help prevent gun violence, about a quarter said they would help a lot.

Other steps were seen as being potentially more effective. About three-quarters of those surveyed said that having more police officers or armed security guards would help prevent mass shootings in public places. And more than 8 in 10 said better mental health screening and treatment would help prevent gun violence.

Violence in popular culture is seen by a large majority of Americans, 75 percent, as contributing to gun violence in the United States, including about 4 in 10 who say it contributes a lot.