Push Polling

The NRA sent me a National Gun Owner's Action Survey. They obviously confused me with someone else, as it said You have been selected to represent gun owners in your area which surprised me; did the gun owners of the area know I had been selected to represent them?

See the problem is; a) I don't own a gun, and b) I support gun laws.

I do own a couple of bows, but I just shoot at circles painted on pieces of card with them...

I did find the survey kind of interesting. A survey is essentially a poll, and as anyone will tell you, in creating an accurate poll, it's the phrasing of the question that's most important. How you ask the question is as important - maybe more important - than what you ask.

Take these examples:

8. Do you think that gun owners should be required to submit to 'safety training' by government bureaucrats before they're allowed to exercise their Second Amendment right to keep and bear arms?

Note the quote around safety training, and the term government bureaucrats. People would vote against driving tests if they were phrased that way.

Or look at this question, which combines two unrelated issues;

9. Do you think that law-abiding gun owners like yourself are in any way responsible for the actions of murderers and robbers who use guns to commit their crimes?

No question about whether the easy availability of guns increases the likelihood of crimes.

One question I had a problem with;

11. If law-abiding citizens were forced to give up their guns to the government, do you think the crime rate in your community would go up, go down or stay about the same?

My problem is that the simple answer is Yes, unfortunately, I think that the crime rate will go up (at least that's what you can conclude from looking at studies of crimes vs. guns in other countries.)

But the answer is much more complicated than that. Countries with strict gun laws tend to have slightly higher burglary rates. But the murder rate is much, much lower. (And no, it's not the burglars being murdered in the United States; it's people getting into stupid arguments and being shot accidentally.)

I guess it comes down to whether you consider life or property more important. One would think that a country that considers itself 'Christian' would be more concerned about life..