These days, the gun debate is not about whether one has the right to own a gun, but about how to balance those existing rights against the need to prevent gun violence. But while the debate has changed, polling questions have not. Pew released some tracking this week showing movement to the left on gay marriage, along with movement to the right on guns. However, the Pew question on "gun control," whose wording goes back about twenty years, is both over-broad and an anachronism. And many outlets use similar language.
(Disclosure: my firm, Momentum Analysis, has done numerous projects for the bipartisan group Mayors Against Illegal Guns. You can read my previous posts on guns here and here, and on my work for the group here, here and here.)
Gun "Control" is an anachronism. Look at the exact wording of the Pew question: "What do you think is more important -- to protect the right of Americans to own guns, or to control gun ownership?" This question uses the language of the gun lobby (rights), not the language of those working for stronger gun laws (safety). And it pits a right versus simply "control" for its own sake.
I don't assume nefarious motives on Pew's part. When this question was first written, "control" was indeed part of the gun debate vernacular. But it is no longer. Using the word "control" is a poor description of that side's position. (While the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence was once called Handgun Control, Inc., the group hasn't had` "control" in its name in over ten years.)
What if there was decades of tracking of something like "what do you think is more important -- to protect the rights of gun owners, or to protect the safety of everyone from gun violence?" Results would, to be sure, be different from the current question.
"Gun control" is overly broad. What do respondents think of when asked whether they support "gun control"? Are they thinking about a ban on all guns, including hunting rifles? Or are they thinking about preventing people accused of domestic violence from getting a gun at a gun show without a background check and then bringing that gun across state lines? We simply don't know. Not that a broad question on attitudes toward gun laws can't be useful, but we should simply understand its limitations.
By comparison, a gay marriage question is more straightforward. While there are, of course, nuances to the gay marriage debate (a civil union alternative, recognition by other states, etc.), we can be reasonably sure all participants are responding to roughly the same concept. A question about "gun control" could mean just about anything.
All outlets could use a gun question rewrite. Pew is not the only polling outlet using outdated language. CBS, ABC/Washington Post, Time Magazine, and Gallup all have used the word "control" in their recent national surveys. In many of these questions, the word "control" can easily be cut, such as in the ABC/Washington Post question, "Do you favor or oppose stricter gun control laws in this country?" However, I prefer a three-way question about whether laws should be made stronger, weaker, or "kept the same." Gallup, NBC/WSJ, CBS/NYT, and Time Magazine have all asked a three-way question, although the latter two, again, include the word "control." (The Polling Report has a good collection of gun questions across outlets.)
But pollsters should also follow-up a broad question with questions about specific, relevant proposals up for debate. Gallup, as I wrote here, continues to ask decades-old questions on a handgun ban, producing headlines like this one. Many other outlets, such as ABC/Washington Post and CBS, continue to test handgun bans and high-capacity magazine bans that are simply not part of the legislative debate. As our polling has shown, huge numbers support recent proposals to strengthen gun laws by requiring background checks for all gun purchases, or allowing states to decide concealed gun permit requirements laws for themselves.
For some time, Americans have recognized private gun ownership as a right; the debate is now about how (or whether!) to keep guns out of dangerous hands. Polling outlets should reflect this change by adjusting their broad question, and adding (or changing) their specific proposal questions. By not revisiting their question language, polling outlets are actually influencing the debate by suggesting there is less support for stronger gun laws than actually exists.
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Here is what Gallup poll of October 20011 really found:
60% of those surveyed supported enforcing current gun laws more strictly and NOT pass any new laws while only 35% responded to enforce current gun laws more strictly and pass new gun control laws.
An Elon poll found that 59 percent of respondents believe gun control laws in the North Carolina should remain as they are now or LESS strict while only33 percent saying gun laws should be made more strict.
There certainly less support for stronger gun laws.
55% of those surveyed supported keeping the laws covering the sale of firearms be kept the same as now or LESS strict while 43% supported making the same laws stricter.
73% of those surveyed opposed a ban on the possession of handguns except by Law Enforcement or other authorized persons which was up from 36% in 1959 while only 26% supported such a ban which was down 60% in 1959.
53% of those surveyed opposed a law banning the manufacture, sale, or possession of semiautomatic firearms known as assault rifles which was up from 42% in 1996 and support for such a ban was only 43% which was down from 57% in 1996.
http://www.gallup.com/poll/150341/Record-Low-Favor-Handgun-Ban.aspx
http://www.ncnn.com/edit-news/7883-elon-poll-asks-about-gun-laws
If you want to slant your polls in favor of gun control, don't actually say 'gun control'.
1. Lower overboard mental stimulation..excess advertisments in media, tech and infrustructor.
2. last time I checked humans brains need lots of oxygen...how can we create more in our atmosphere.
3.Make it illegal to create poisions that disturb brain chemestry.weather food ..pharma etc.
4. slow things down in general ...reality is not a sitcom not every encounter, transaction etc
can be filled wth intro, middle highpoint , plot and suspense.
5. Have a honest open debate about "ill humor" and how it effect communication.
6. Open and honest discussion about we are are the only ones within all the nine planets and theres really nowere we can go for know...how can we all exist in this poetry of motion and harmonize with everything around us insted of "playing punk music ...while the audience is playing classical"
The guns are not the issue. Unfortunalty as much as we want to assume and delusionally perceive our societies wheater urban , rual or rual romote are 100% civilized....we are not. The problem is not the guns.... it's random unprovoked attacks like for example as in the assault to Marjon Rostami David Forster who were attacked by 100 youth recently. What are making these humans act like life is a video game and if they attack innocent people they are praised. Could it be the fine and high culture they are absorbing? Our society has been glorying celebrities who not created ....Ex drug dealers become mega hits worldwide. We show how we promote and glorying Horrible and inapropriante human behavior. It's monkey see monkey too....psychologist uderstand this perfectly that is why they are paid top dollar to "integrate" marketing into the sleepy population. Again it's not the guns....it's the state of mind we are cultivating. The romans attempted to not allow peasents to own swords , jews around the world were not allowed to own weapons either. Even when the portable rail gun that is ion drived or plasma sits in the safe of every family armory. It is never about these object because the square roots of these equations are always lead back to the same points
2. Do you favor the right of a citizen to carry a gun ? Yes
3. Should the state enact laws to prevent criminals from obtaining a gun ? Yes
4. Should the state enact laws to prevent the mentally ill from obtaining a gun ? Yes
1. Most citizens already have a right to own a gun.
2. Most citizens already have a right to carry a gun.
3. There are laws that make it illegal for most serious criminals to have a gun.
4. There are laws that make it illegal for those adjudicated seriously mentally ill to have a gun.
Interesting, aye?
Lie #2-"Gun "Control" is an anachronism." - No it is not, Gun Control is as stated.
Lie #3-" preventing people accused of domestic violence from getting a gun at a gun show without a background check and then bringing that gun across state lines? We simply don't know. - Yes we do know, it is IMPOSSIBLE because of a little item that cost's $25.00 called a NICS check.
Lie #4-"our polling has shown, huge numbers support recent proposals to strengthen gun laws by requiring background checks for all gun purchases" - There is nothing RECENT about that comment and nothing YOUR POLLING did in the forward movement of that statement, the N.R.A. owns that and justly so.
Finally the statement "All outlets could use a gun question rewrite" means simply that because you cannot gain support or legislation by stating CLEARLY your intent to the freedom loving Aecond Amendment Supporters including Legislators at Federal and State levels, and are now seeing the outwardly lessening support for your cause built on these lies dwindling away with your words, the only option is to change tactics but it's too late you've already been seen and tracked by truths spotlight.
He's really a Democrat, but called himself a Republican for years, and now identifies as an Independent. How much more bipartisan can you get?