Rallying her base — and putting her enemies on notice — Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Rodham Clinton told a debate audience in Las Vegas that the country must "stand up against the NRA" and push for more gun-control laws. It may have worked. Polls show that with Democrats, Clinton is up.

But Clinton and the Democrats do not have the support of the American people on this issue, according to a new Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll. Fifty-two percent of respondents view the Democratic Party as being "outside the mainstream" when it comes to guns, while only 38 percent think the Democrats represent "the mainstream." A CNN/ORC poll just released has 52 percent of Americans also saying they "oppose stricter gun laws," including 56 percent of independents. Clinton, not the NRA, is out of touch.

Clinton, like President Obama, has hinted at the idea of gun confiscation, but that doesn't sit well with most Americans either: Gallup reported in 2012 that 74 percent oppose a handgun ban, a record high, and 51 percent oppose a ban on so-called "assault weapons." In 2014 Pew Research reported that for the first time in two decades of polling, most Americans — 52 percent — are more concerned with protecting the right to keep and bear arms than passing more gun laws.

An overwhelming majority of Americans — 68 percent! — told Rasmussen pollsters just this year that they prefer to live where gun rights are respected. What is perhaps most revealing here is that only about 32 percent of Americans live in households where someone owns a gun — so around one hundred million non-owners are quite comfortable with the fact that their neighbors are armed. We might surmise that even ostensibly anti-gun Americans understand the benefit they derive from their gun-owning neighbors. When was the last time you saw a "gun-free home" sign on anyone's lawn?

A Chapman University poll last April found that 58 percent of Americans fear corrupt government more than anything else — which might explain why so many people support private gun ownership. Gun sales spike every time a Democrat starts talking about guns, and Democratic pollsters admit that it's typically a losing issue for the party.