By WILL LESTER, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Three-fourths of Americans, including a majority of gun owners, favor requiring guns to be sold with trigger locks, an Associated Press poll found. People had mixed feelings about whether tougher gun laws or stricter enforcement was the most effective way to cut violence.

The poll found that 43 percent thought stricter enforcement was more likely to cut gun violence, while 33 percent said enacting tougher gun laws was a better approach. A fifth of those polled said neither option was best.

"We need more enforcement of existing laws," said Donna Mesa, a reservation agent from Honolulu who was roaming the National Mall on a sunny Wednesday afternoon. "We need more law enforcement at the local level."

The poll was conducted for the AP by ICR of Media, Pa.

An AP poll taken immediately after the Columbine High School shootings, which occurred a year ago today, showed that more people at that time thought tougher laws were the answer.

The argument for better enforcement of current gun laws often is used by gun control opponents to fight more laws.

Teacher Joyce Bell, who was with her 11-year-old daughter near the Washington Monument on Wednesday, said she wanted better enforcement and stricter laws.

"I want new gun laws. There shouldn't be any guns, in my opinion," the Wilmington, Del., resident said.

The AP poll taken immediately after the shootings a year ago at Columbine High School in Littleton, Colo., showed just over half of Americans said more gun laws were more effective, while four in 10 picked tougher enforcement. But by late August, people had shifted to thinking stricter enforcement was a better way to reduce violence.

In the new poll, six in 10 said they supported stricter gun control laws, a number that has remained relatively constant in most polls before and after the Columbine shooting on April 20, 1999, that left 15 dead, including two student gunmen.

Seven in 10 women favor tougher gun control laws, while half the men said they felt that way in the AP poll of 829 people taken Friday through Tuesday. It had an error margin of plus or minus 4 percentage points.

Just over half of those polled said background checks for gun purchases help reduce the number of crimes committed with guns, while four of 10 said they do not.

More than four of five women support requiring trigger locks, while two-thirds of men said they favored the idea. Seven of 10 gun owners in the poll said they backed trigger locks, while gun owners were split on the overall question of more gun control laws.

Maryland enacted a law earlier this month requiring that, beginning in October, all guns sold in the state must have external trigger locks. After 2003, new handguns will have to be equipped with built-in locks.

Although Maryland is the only state to have passed such a law, the trigger lock movement has been gaining momentum nationally.

Jeff Teasdale, a printing plant supervisor from Baraboo, Wis., was for requirement of trigger locks, saying: "It would prevent a lot of kids from getting hurt." But he also wants better enforcement. "I don't think the laws right now are being enforced."

While gun legislation has been stymied on Capitol Hill, President Clinton has been encouraging a growing move in the states to deal with firearms safety questions.

In March, New York's Republican governor, George Pataki, called for mandatory trigger locks for all guns. Days later, Smith & Wesson - the nation's largest gun manufacturer - agreed to provide external safety locks on all its handguns within 60 days and internal locks within two years.

Both Al Gore and George W. Bush, the likely Democratic and Republican presidential nominees, respectively, support requiring that trigger locks be sold with guns.

The gun debate was something of a mystery for a young man from London, visiting Washington this week.

"When we read about Columbine and other shootings," said sound engineer Chris Burdon, "we didn't understand the massive pressure to maintain this freedom to own guns."