Back in April 2012, well before the past elections, Reuters asked folks some poll questions about guns (Reuters-Ipsos Poll). The focus of that poll appeared to be the Second Amendment, although the write-up of the poll doesn't say so in so many words. If you read the news of the poll that day, you would think that by a huge majority, Americans of all political stripes favor the right to defend themselves by use of firearms, first in their home by 87 to 13 percent, then on the street by 2/3 to 1/3. Polled on the favorables of the NRA, 82% of the GOPes and 55% of (D)onks thought favorably of the gun-rights group. Historically, this was AFTER the Trayvon Martin incident which the (D)onks tried to use to springboard gun restrictions. Obviouoly, those polled back in April of last year were having none of THAT.
Now, with all that poll data taken just after a previous "conversation on guns", spring forward only eight months to this past week, and NOW look at the Reuters-Ipsos poll.
Strange, innit? All of a sudden, the good citizens of the USA seems to have totally reversed themselves about guns and their use, don't they?
Or DID THEY?
First, despite the two polls appearing to be on the same subject, they aren't. Remember, the first poll was to gauge attitudes about the Second Amendment and defensive use of firearms, and this new poll tries to sell us a gutted Second Amendment. The first poll appears to be a traditional poll on attitudes, but the second poll is an ordinary push-poll. Those are entirely different purposes, so despite looking to be a re-do of the same poll, the two polls are as far apart as apples and oranges in their purpose as well as their result.
From the new poll's summary:
"About three-quarters of Americans surveyed support proposals to ban the sale of automatic weapons, ban high-capacity ammunition clips and expand background checks on all gun buyers, according to an online Reuters/Ipsos poll released on Thursday."
It was interesting to note that Wayne LaPierre's suggestion of guarding schools was supported well, 72% to 28%, but an AWB, a "hi-cap ban" and a de-factor ban on private sales were supported about 3-to-one.
In the last two days, the Bloomie-led (gun) Control supporters and Civil Right Deniers have been touting "victory over the NRA". This poll would seem to suggest that the NRA is alive and well, if support for the guards in schools idea is any measure. Remember that Obama tried to laught that idea out of the room by saying it should be supported on a test base of 1,000 guards or cops only, enough people to do one-quarter of one percent of the job needing doing.
It's noteworthy that the push-poll came out in complete conjunction with the Obama (gun) Control speech, but despite panning the school-guards idea, the push-poll coundn't beat it back.
...but, the bottom line here is that the second poll IS a poll designed not to measure the strength of ideas, but to use to shape them. The first poll seemed to measure the strength of 2A-driven self-defense as a concept, and found it highly acceptable.
Now, may we infer that the pollees in both cases were similar of makup? If so, one of two things happened between April and this past week: those polled seem to have totally disconnected armed self-defense from the 2A in the past 8 months, or they are so abysmally dumb that they can't think anything through.
Either way, this Nation is in trouble, big trouble. After being stimulated by the Trayvon Martin affair to think of their vulnerability, and coming to the correct conclusion that defense against deadly threat must allow resort to deadly force, these same people can look at Newtown, and say THAT issue is best solved by making it more difficult to impossible to be armed for that defense of kids in the first place?
I hate to think about my neighbors being this abysmally idiotic, but it looks like I might have to accept that fact. That double-wide in the Idaho Panhandle is looking better and better every day.
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