Looks like they are polling NRA members and gun owners to show support for gun control in an attempt to weaken NRA’s political clout. You can see the actual poll here. We all know you an get anyone to agree with nearly anything in a poll depending on how you ask the question. Also, these are self-selected NRA members, which our side’s polling has showed is around 33 million people, so many of these people are, in fact, not NRA members while claiming to be. But let’s look at the questions here:
Now we are going to discuss a few policies and proposals under consideration, as well as some existing laws that are being discussed. Do you … the following?
A proposal prohibiting people on the terrorist watch lists from purchasing guns.
82% of NRA members supported, and 86% of non-NRA member gun owners supported. But how would it change the poll if you said “no fly list” instead? Or explained some background on exactly what the “terrorist watch list” is. What if you had framed it “Do you support a proposal denying Second Amendment rights to American citizens who the government has interest in possibly being terrorists?” Â Frame it that way I bet you lost your majority. The way the question is asked, who wants to appear to favor guns for terrorists?
A proposal requiring all gun sellers at gun shows to conduct criminal background checks of the people buying guns.
69% of NRA members supported, 85% of non-NRA member gun owners supported. Explain that all transfers will have to go through an FFL at a cost of $30 dollars up toward $50 dollars and then see what happens to the support.
A proposal requiring gun owners to alert police if their guns are lost or stolen.
78% of NRA member supported, 88% of non-NRA member gun owners supported. What about if you asked “A proposal to fine or jail gun owners who fail to report their guns that are lost or stolen to the police?”
A federal law allowing guns to be carried in bags on Amtrak trains.
That’s just a dishonest way to ask the question. Carried in checked bags. But 61% of NRA members would presumably be fine with that, wholly on 33% of non-NRA gun owners would.
What’s interesting is that they go on to show these really are gun owners by asking them questions about other topics. For instance, people identifying as NRA members overwhelmingly support carry in national parks, and a majority of non-NRA member gun owners do as well. Support for semi-auto bans among gun owners never breaks majority, and support among NRA members is only 30%. There’s overwhelming generic support for Heller in both groups, and for McDonald. Large majorities also think Obama will try to ban the sale of guns as President. Interestingly enough, NRA members are far more likely to feel safer than now as opposed to five years ago than non-NRA gun owners. So much for the claim we’re all paranoid to death of crime.
There’s a few conclusions that can be drawn from this.
- MAIG is very serious about what they doing, and they are taking a very smart strategy to get what they want.
- As gun owners, we’ve done a fantastic job in the past decade of educating other gun owners on last decade’s battles. You see high support for concealed carry, high support for gun ownership generically, and low support for semi-auto bans.
- The debate is shifting onto grounds where we have not yet had the opportunity to educate gun owners. MAIG knows this and is ready to exploit it. More importantly, I think MAIG wanted to find out where we are strong, and where we are weak. This poll is basically reinforcement of their current strategy because it shows we’re weakest along their current line of attack.
When we speak of going after the fence sitters, these are the fence sitters. If 33 million Americans strongly oppose something, the politicians will be scared to death to cross them. We have to reach this crowd, but we’re not going to reach them with extremism. We have to reach them with real information. If we do that, we can sway their opinion. What do you think the support among self-identified NRA members for a semi-auto ban would have been in 1993? Sadly on that issue, they had to get their education through having to live with a ban. It’s our jobs to prevent the need for them to be educated through bad legislation yet again.
I wonder what percent would support jailing and fining gun owners for failing to notify the police if their guns were lost or stolen by the police?
That’s some scary stuff – 30% of the NRA members support a national registry.
30% of people who claim to be NRA members support a national registry. Like I said, when our side has done polling to find out how many people think they are NRA members, the number is something like 33 million. A lot of people think because they took a course, or even just bought a gun, that they are members of NRA. A lot of them used to be members, but have let their memberships lapse.
Two things stick out for me.
1) Semi Auto Ban see question #24
2) The Demographic that was revealed. Mostly Southern 50 to 64, Suburban dwelling, with what can be construed as limited post high school education.
But I would like to meet one NRA member who has ever taken this poll.
Can the NRA do it’s own similar poll?
Has anyone ever met one of these “NRA members” who answer these polls? When the Joyce’s did a similar poll showing 70% supported ‘closing the gun show loophole’, I did that poll on DOOT with 100% of 150 NRA members opposing.
I read something recently pointing out what a small percentage of gun owners are actually members of the NRA and suggesting that it’s because many gun owners are not believers in the preaching of the NRA.
I think the MAIG is smart indeed to go after these tens of millions.
Why don’t they go to Charlotte next year and take a poll at the annual meeting and see what real, verified NRA members have to say.
It smells like made-up bullshit to me.
Also, “gun owners who did not belong to the NRA” could be an easy sample-set of Liberal Californians from Barbara Boxer’s own district. Many gun-owners here in CA are not defined by conservatism but by protectionism and me-first – “I’ve got mine, the rest of you can go to hell.”
Thanks for access to the actual poll questions. Wow, they’re loaded for bear. Note that our masters now categorize “high school graduate” and “high school dropout” as the same! That’s a stunning admission by someone in the hierarchy.
And so on. There are about three straight questions in the whole damthing. I say we license pollsters. With a fee.