“If I were the governor, I wouldn’t like to see this much of a drop,” Mr. Carroll added. But he noted that, even with the decline, “a lot of politicians would kill for numbers like that.”

Mr. Cuomo, speaking to reporters at the State Capitol on Wednesday, said he believed that the decline in his approval rating was solely because of the gun control issue. He also said he was not surprised.

“I understand the sensitivity very, very well, and we all knew it going in,” Mr. Cuomo, a Democrat, said. “There’s no mystery to the fact that we’ve been dealing with this issue as a government and as a society for decades without action. Why? Because it’s politically sensitive.

“But we are not here to duck the tough issues. We are here to take on the tough issues.”

Mr. Cuomo added that he believed that, with time, gun owners who were upset with him would reconsider their views.

“The more they understand the law, the more they hear about the law, the better they’re going to feel, because it has nothing to do with the legitimate ownership of a gun,” he said.