Hearing gun owners’ voice
From the New York Times:
|
Mr. Luntz queried 832 gun owners, including 401 card-carrying N.R.A. members, in a survey commissioned by Mayors Against Illegal Guns, the alliance of hundreds of executives seeking stronger gun laws. In flat rebuttal of N.R.A. propaganda, the findings showed that 69 percent of N.R.A. members supported closing the notorious gun-show loophole that invites laissez-faire arms dealing outside registration requirements. . . Imagine, the dreaded M-word — moderates — surfacing in a political constituency that the N.R.A. portrays as fully locked and loaded for marching orders. . . [AO: This story is an illustration of what scientists, pollsters and, generally, those who are involved in polling have always known: survey questions can be phrased or otherwise limited to elicit the answers the pollster wants. Moreover, it also illustrates why no political group should cede the voice of non-members to its opponent. Left to survey gun owners and amplify their voice, the NRA has no doubt focused on questions that it deems most beneficial to its purpose. This is not to say that the NRA has been cooking the books. Instead, the NRA has simply been doing what, in a way, it should do: focusing on its goals. But in doing so, it fails to represent the entirety of gun owners’ voice. That is, significant numbers of gun owners, as exemplified by the story, have beliefs, goals, etc. regarding gun control that are not exactly the same as the NRA. As a result, these gun owners need another entity to help them amplify that aspect of their voice. They need the Mayors Against Illegal Guns and other organizations like it that will design a variety of questions that allow the complexity of their voice to be heard. The lessons that ought to be learned from this study include not only what gun owners are willing to accept but the realization that large segments of the population should not be left to pooling by only one entity that has a vested interest in the outcome. This message is relevant no matter the cause.] |
The National Rifle Association has long fulminated in the gun control debate in Washington like the Great Oz in the Emerald City. Now along comes Frank Luntz, a conservative Republican pollster who, Toto-like, has snatched back Oz’s curtain to reveal that gun owners favor much more reasonable gun controls than the gun lobby would ever allow the public to imagine. Read the full opinion HERE.
