New Polling

Extrano’s Alley points to some new polling showing strong support for the Second Amendment and gun ownership among Americans. The poll also shows low support (30%) for ownership of semi-automatic firearms, but I’m not too pleased with how that was polled. They first asked about handguns, and then rifles and shotguns. They asked about semi-automatic firearms as a separate category, which probably greatly confused people into thinking it was something else other than ordinary rifles, shotguns and handguns. The vast majority of handguns sold today are semi-automatic, as well as large numbers of rifles and shotguns. It seems hard to believe support for ownership would be so divergent if people understood the question well.

9 thoughts on “New Polling”

  1. I think the semi-automatic question is highly misleading, especially since I don’t see any info as to where their sample was drawn. In the country any kid knows what it means, but as you move to the hoplophobic city comfusion will be rampant (right along with the panic).

    And, who commissioned this poll? We would need to know a lot more before I would want to take this seriously.

  2. It’s obvious that most people only heard ‘automatic’ when asked about semi-automatic weapons. That this term was even used in one of the questions when there were other questions about actual semi-auto weapons makes me wonder what possible value there was to wording things in that way. Even the analysis in the linked paper seems confused, since it doesn’t seem surprised at all that while 85% of Americas are ok with shotguns, hand guns and rifles, 61% doesn’t like “semi-automatic” weapons.

    Another question that comes to mind about this study is whether the the responses that semi-auto weapons should only be used by the police (61%) are somehow being used to calculate the statistic that 46% of Americans would like to see stricter firearms laws.

  3. More pop culture evidence our side is winning

    The latest episode of the high rated CBS TV sitcom “Big Bang Theory” had a segment where some of the characters go to an indoor shooting range during a date, and it is presented as a positive and good activity.

    1. I never watched the show, but in the commercial for that episode there was a negligent discharge. Seems more like a Japete message.

  4. Semi-automatic just sounds cool and expert. The members of the CriminalLiberalNewsMedia constantly display their ignorance when describing firearms. With fewer and fewer people experiencing military training, I’m surprised we’re doing as well as we are.

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