Gun Ownership Poll Accuracy

[osbornk]

I don't say anything. The only thing they hear is HELLO and then a click when they start talking.

[scrubcedar]

Okay so most of the replies have talked about phone surveys. A lot of these surveys were conducted door to door. Would your answers be any different under those circumstances?

[Sport45]

What's a more accurate poll?

1. Number of gun owners
2. Accuracy claimed by gun owners

[thedudeabides]

Yeah, I'm just polling on how many TVs, nice watches, fine jewelry, and guns you have in your house.

...oh, and are you employed, if so what are your work hours?

[Mike Irwin]

I would definitely answer the question.

I'd just lie.

[Spats McGee]

Door-to-door? Not only would I not answer the question, I'd make it clear that I don't care for strangers showing up at my door uninvited.

[Bamashooter]

I dont have anything to hide. Owning multiple guns is legal. I dont mind people asking me a question or stopping by the house. Ive worked hard for a long time and Im a proud gun owner.

[amathis]

I don't hide the fact that I'm an avid hunter and gun owner. Most people find out within 20 minutes of meeting me.

That said, I'm not going to tell some random kid on college break that I have guns in my home. There isn't a chance in the world.

If I don't know you, and I don't get a good read on you, you will never know and you will NEVER be invited into my house.

[Spats McGee]

Oh, I don't hide the fact that I own guns. . . from folks I know. I do have to have a minute to get a bead on someone, though. Everyone I work with knows I have guns. I'm "the gun lawyer" in the office. I take vacation days to go hunting. It's not a secret when I go to the range. Someone knocking uninvited at my door holding a clipboard . . . that's a different matter altogether. I'm always concerned that they're casing me and my place for a future robbery. Not that I have a whole lot of stuff worth stealing, but I'm not about to give them that information.

[BornToLooze]

I'm not going to tell some random person if I own guns, or anything else expensive, that being said, I'm from Texas, owning guns is a requirement.

[lcpiper]

Okay so most of the replies have talked about phone surveys. A lot of these surveys were conducted door to door. Would your answers be any different under those circumstances?

I open the door, ask their business, and if it were a survey I'd say I have more important things to do goodbye. Politely, and as I close my door, I would slide my pistol into my back pocket so I can turn the dead bolt.

[scrubcedar]

This is all making it very clear to everyone involved, I hope, that these polls simply cannot be delivering accurate numbers.

[UniversalFrost]

i will keep sticking to this line...

i lost all my guns in a tragic canoing accident years ago and all i have left is a daisy red rider...

[Crankylove]

Over the phone, or door-to-door, I would let them know its none of thier business, and to not contact me again.

It's nobody's business but mine as to what I posess, be it firearms, t.v.'s, clothing brands, or my favorite shampoo.

[Buzzcook]

If I had the time, no problem. I ain't skeered of black copters either.

[22-rimfire]

I would participate in the poll. My answer about firearm ownership is NO. My answer about many things is NO as opposed to "that's none of your business". None of your business is not usually one of the available choices.

Do you keep a supply of toilet paper inside your house? NO
Do you have more food than you need for the next week? NO
Do you have a savings account? NO
Do you have stocks and bonds outside of a retirement account? NO
Do you have a retirement account? NO
Do you have a job? NO
What is your view about the economy in the next 6 months? Worse
What's your view about the economy in the next year? Worse
Is the job situation in your area about the same as last year? YES
Do you expect the job situation to improve in the coming year? NO
Do you think the economy is better, the same, or worse than a year ago? Worse

I'm great with polls.

[shortwave]

I'd most likely answer that question with a question depending if I'm in a frisky mood.

Such as...how much money do you have in your checking/savings acct.?...or...what's your S.S. number? Or do you have any sister's I can date...what about mom?

If they still haven't hung up on me the questions are subject to get a bit more colorful.

[JRH6856]

I have caller ID. I wouldn't answer the phone, much less the question.

[scrubcedar]

Something popped up in my head last night. I see a lot of if/then posts here. "If they contacted me this way, then I would..." Has anyone here actually been contacted by someone about their gun ownership data?

[Mausermolt]

my grandpa always brings this point up when someone says "gun" : "a gun is something mounted on a naval ship used for long range bombardment.you must be talking about a rifle,pistol or shotgun." so if someone asks me if i own guns (unfamiliar person) i tell them "nope, as far as i know they are illegal." i love be a smart alec :P

[j3ffr0]

I don't do unsolicited phone calls.

However assuming the poll was done in some other public place (outside gun store or whatever) I would have no problem answering truthfully.

[Dr Big Bird PhD]

I would participate in the poll. My answer about firearm ownership is NO. My answer about many things is NO as opposed to "that's none of your business". None of your business is not usually one of the available choices.

Do you keep a supply of toilet paper inside your house? NO
Do you have more food than you need for the next week? NO
Do you have a savings account? NO
Do you have stocks and bonds outside of a retirement account? NO
Do you have a retirement account? NO
Do you have a job? NO
What is your view about the economy in the next 6 months? Worse
What's your view about the economy in the next year? Worse
Is the job situation in your area about the same as last year? YES
Do you expect the job situation to improve in the coming year? NO
Do you think the economy is better, the same, or worse than a year ago? Worse

Definitely the best of all responses

[STW]

I was a professional pollster (or at least market researcher) in a past life. I used to answer most any question from pollsters simply because I knew what I hard time the people on the phone had. Not any more.

I've seen results twisted to fit an agenda by the client even when I, as the researcher, did my best to remove bias and leading questions. Too many polls today are bad in that they are designed to fit a preconceived agenda. Companies trying to sell products generally do it right. They are spending their own money and someone, or at least someone's budget, will bear responsibility. Southwick Assoc. does monthly polls for the gun industry and I participate in those for that reason.

Political polls are agenda driven and need to be avoided like the plague they are.

[larryh1108]

Polls have no validity. It depends on where they are taken and who is contacted. This poll here shows almost 25% would lie and 40% would not answer. If they mark a refused to answer as an answer that the taker wants (like no answer meas yes to gun control) then the answers are skewed. If you take a poll in downtown Manhattan it will be different than if you took it outside a Farm & Feed store in rural America. Where did the calling list originate? Registered voters? Registered Democrats? 18-25 year old college students? Totally random? Does anyone here believe a totally random selection? I don't. Whoever sponsors the polls gets their list of who to call somewhere and I have no faith in the list. Polls are meaningless.

We can have a poll here of who owns guns and use that for an agenda. What do you think the results would be? 99% of people are gun owners?

[LogicMan]

IMO, gun ownership is not as important. It's what number or percentage of Americans support the Second Amendment. This, I think, is something that the gun control people ignore. You'll see things like:

"The NRA only has four million members. They can't be that powerful. Four million is a tiny percentage of the 300+ million Americans in this country. The NRA is just a very vocal minority and a lobbying arm of the gun industry."

"Gun ownership is on the decline. Fewer Americans own guns today than before, therefore the gun lobby's days are numbered."

I think both are flawed for a few reasons:

1) I made this point in another thread, but I'll make it here too: the NRA's influence does not reside solely with those who are members. It also has the ear of many more non-members. It thus represents a large swath of Americans.

2) The gun control people seem to forget this point, but the number of people who own guns is not the same as the number of people who support the Second Amendment. There are plenty of people who don't own a gun, have never owned a gun, probably never will own a gun, and who don't know that much about guns, but who nevertheless strongly believe in and support the Second Amendment. They appreciate that they have the right to acquire a firearm should they feel they really need or want one.

In the past, even with higher levels of gun ownership, it seems fewer Americans supported the Second Amendment. A lot of the gun ownership was among hunters, and hence the gun control proponents could always rely on the, "We're not trying to take away your bolt-action hunting rifle or anything like that..." and thus the constant drum about hunting and so forth. Joe Biden said recently about how one problem for them was that they are not dealing with just hunters anymore, they are dealing with a lot of people who own guns for protection and sport shooting purposes.

We see this also with the Anheuser Busch guy withdrawing his NRA membership, saying how it "used" to be an organization of hunters and how he sees "assault weapons" and "high-capacity magazines" as bad. He was the ideal type that the gun control people would target. Basically people who had the attitude of, "It's fine if you take away THAT guy's gun, just so long as you don't take away MY gun."

Now there has been much handwringing by the gun control people over how the Second Amendment is now seen as an individual right. Many of them really think that it was a collective right because they don't know the history of it. And for many years, I think this was sort of the standard line-of-thinking, that the Second Amendment was just a collective right and most people who owned guns owned them more for hunting and so forth, and thus gun control was much easier to pass.

But since the 1960s, gun rights people have fought hard to get people to understand what the Second Amendment is really about, that it protects a right to keep arms for self-defense (which can include the government, although that can require more in-depth explaining or else you can get portrayed as a conspiracy theory type) and that terms like "assault weapon" and "high-capacity magazine" are political terms meant to trick the general public.

As long as the general public believes in the Second Amendment, then gun ownership levels are not as relevant, but what is important is that gun rights people continue to fight vigilantly to keep the general public educated on firearms. For example, some people, maybe even a lot, who support the Second Amendment, only recently since the Newtown shooting became aware that the AR-15 is not an automatic fire weapon, that it's semiautomatic. Beforehand, they supported the Second Amendment, but otherwise only had a passing interest in firearms.

I thought a textbook example of this was the conservative Bill Kristol. I saw him on television some months back say (paraphrasing as I forget the exact quote): "I support the Second Amendment, but I'm not sure if I support someone being allowed to own a semiautomatic, quasi-machine gun that shoots five-hundred rounds in an instant." (). However, now he is aware that AR-15s are semiautomatic, so he was one who supports the 2nd, but didn't know much about guns, and now has educated himself more on the issue.