A new study has found that more people want to legally arm themselves after the mass shooting in an Orlando nightclub which left 49 people dead.

The Washington Post-ABC News survey found that 54 per cent of those surveyed would support encouraging more people to carry guns legally for self-defence, while 42 per cent opposed the idea.

Over two thirds of those surveyed politically identified themselves as democrat or independent.

Breaking the results down by category, armed self-defense was more highly valued by white Republican men who live in rural or suburban areas and who do not have a college degree, the study found.

The survey of a random national sample of 1,001 adults came after a lone gunman called Omar Mateen burst into the Pulse nightclub on 12 June, shooting more than 100 people and only re-loading his AR-15 semi-automatic gun once. Now, 86 per cent of people are very concerned about more lone wolf attacks.

Mateen, who was killed by police, had been investigated twice by the FBI several years before he carried out the attacks.

School and University mass shootings in America Show all 12 1 /12 School and University mass shootings in America School and University mass shootings in America Craghead County, Arkansas - 24 March, 1998 Students Mitchell Johnson,13, and Andrew Golden, 11, killed four students and one teacher, wounding ten others at Westside Middle School Reuters School and University mass shootings in America Springfield, Oregon - 21 May 1998 After killing his parents at home, 13- year-old Kip Kinkel drove to Thurston High School where he shot and killed two students and a teacher at a school dance, wounding 23 others. Getty School and University mass shootings in America Columbine, Colorado - 20 April 1999 Eric Harris, 18, and Dylan Klebold, 17, killed twelve students and one teacher at Columbine High School. They wounded 23 others before committing suicide. Getty School and University mass shootings in America Santee, California - 5 March 2001 Charles Andrew Williams, 15, opens fire on at Santana High School, killing two students and wounding thirteen others. Getty School and University mass shootings in America Red Lake, Minnesota - 24 September 2005 Jeffrey Weise, 16, kills his grandfather before driving to Red Lake Senior High School. He proceeded to shoot and kill five students, one teacher and security guard before committing suicide. Seven others were wounded. Getty School and University mass shootings in America Nickel Mines, Pennsylvania - 2 October 2006 Charles Carl Roberts IV,a 32-year-old milk truck driver, shot to death five Amish girls and wounded five more in an Amish school in the hamlet of Nickel Mines before committing suicide. Getty School and University mass shootings in America Blacksburg, Virginia - 16 April 2007 Seung-Hui Cho, 23, shot and killed 32 students and faculty members and wounded 17 others at Virgina Tech University. It is the deadliest attack by a lone gunman in US history. Getty School and University mass shootings in America DeKalb, Illinois - 14 February 2008 Steve Kazmierczak, 27, killed 6 and wounded 21 at Northern Illinois University before committing suicide. Getty School and University mass shootings in America Oakland, California - 2 April 2012 Gunman One L. Goh, 43, shot shot and killed seven students in a classroom at Oikos University, a small Christian college. Goh was deemed unfit for trial in January 2013 after being diagnosed with paranoid schizophrenia. Getty School and University mass shootings in America Newtown, Connecticut - 14 December 2012 Adam Lanza, 20, killed 26 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School. He first killed his mother before taking her guns and driving to the school. He killed 20 children in the first grade along with six adults before killing himself. Getty School and University mass shootings in America Santa Monica, California - 7 June 2013 John Zawahri, 23, shot and killed five people on, or near, the campus of Santa Monica College. Getty School and University mass shootings in America Isla Vista, California - 23 May, 2014 22 year-old-Elliott Rodger went on a stabbing and shooting rampage just outside of the main campus of University of California, Santa Barbara. He killed 7 people and wounded 13 more. Getty

Almost three quarters - 72 per cent - of people support increasing surveillance of people suspected of possible links to terrorism, “even if that intrudes on privacy rights”, while 86 per cent of people want to ban anyone on the FBI’s watch list from purchasing a gun.

After a sit-in staged by democrats, they were finally granted to hold a vote on gun controls two weeks ago. Lawmakers failed after Orlando, however, to pass any of the four proposed amendments, including stopping possible terrorists purchasing weapons and banning assault weapons, as the bills were shut down by the Republican-led senate.

The survey found public opinion on banning assault weapons was relatively tight. Only 51 per cent wanted to ban the sale of assault weapons, the rest opposed the move.