(CNN) As political Washington mulls what -- if anything -- to do legislatively to address the latest in a long line of mass murders committed with guns, a new Fox News poll has a number in it that is an absolute stunner.

That number is 67%, which reflects respondents who told pollsters that they support a ban on assault weapons. For you non-math majors out there, that's two-thirds of the American public!

Yes, there is something of a partisan divide on the question -- with 86% of Democrats favoring a ban on automatic and semiautomatic weapons, while 46% of Republicans feel the same. But look at it another way: On a proposal that is widely regarded in GOP congressional circles as a non-starter because it is going too far in limiting guns, self-identified Republicans are split right down the middle -- 46% support, 46% oppose.

Among Republican women -- one of the key swing voting blocs heading into 2020, a majority (54%) support an assault weapons ban, while just 36% oppose it. And even a majority of people in gun-owning households (53%) support an assault weapons ban.

There hasn't been an assault weapons ban in place in the United States since the last one expired in 2004, after a decade on the books. Attempts to renew it in 2004 failed -- due at least in part, to a heightened national security climate in the wake of the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks and a lack of urgency from the Bush White House.

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