And why does USA Today headline the Gallup Poll results Gun control poll shows mixed results? Maybe they can’t handle the truth. Oh, and how’s this for a loaded question: “Which would you prefer: enforce the current gun laws more strictly and not pass new gun laws or pass new gun laws in addition to enforcing the current ones more strictly?” See what they did there?

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40 COMMENTS

  1. And how the one point change from 43% to 44% in favor is made to look quite large. More than 1/6th longer. (~16%?)

    • 44% > 53% and 51%, makes sense right?

      The question also asked about “semiautomatic guns” and then threw in “assault rifles” at the end just to help people make a decision.

      Even though the data supports us, the anti’s fvcked this chart to make it look like the information supports them.

  2. Remember that a question at least frames its possible answers, and in the worst dictates them….

  3. Gee, that 44% looks like a longer line than the 51%. I really need to get my eyes checked, when I first glanced at it I thought the Anti-gunners outnumbered the Pro…silly me…Shirley, they wouldn’t try to confuse the issue, would they? And I know, don’t call you Shirley.

  4. At the end of every lecture in my statistics class (back in the 70’s), the professor did a quick
    “Lies, Damn Lies and Statistics” segment so that we could recognize how “statistics” are used in the real world to mislead.
    This stuff? Right out of the book!

    It’s called variable scaling within the same graphic.

    • One truth that came out of my sociology classes in college – tell me what results you want, and I can phrase the questions and the “precursor information” to give you the responses you need.

      This is why I believe we all have a moral duty to lie to pollsters.

      • Which shows how well we are doing given the likely fact that the poll questions are trying to make it sound like our weapons are not wanted. If you think that they are trying to make it seem like assault weapons are evil and yet we have a majority, imagine what it would be if you had actual neutral questions?

    • It’s not lesson one for progressives, it’s lesson one in marketing. While I’m more conservative than liberal, you can’t point to liberals and make the case if you are being honest. I took marketing classes while getting my MBA and I felt dirty during the class. Marketing is really a code word for manipulating.

  6. It seems to me that the most recent December numbers are 51% oppose a ban and 44% support a ban. Previously in October there was a 10 point difference and now after the recent mass shooting there is a 7 point difference with opposition to a ban still dominant. The poll was taken shortly after the horror of the shooting was still overwhelming Americans with emotions very high.

  7. USA Today is a Gannett-owned paper – same company that owns The Journal-News that published the CCW holder database. I’m thinking the whole damn company is anti-gun and it’s time for a boycott.

  10. The second slide asks the question on whether there should be a law “that bans the possession of a handgun, except by police or other authorized persons.” What kind of question is that? Are you serious? Ban the possession of a handgun?

    I guess USAToday envisions handguns as an NFA item like semi-auto rifles.

    • Video is from December 15, before all the facts were known.

      Really we all need to wait and see what the full police report says.

  12. USA today is NOT a conservative news service and is very very antigun like CNN NBC CBS and ABC so even when the number go against what they want they bend the truth like usual to make tings look good there way. I still like that now just two week after everything happened 51% oppose any gun ban that’s good news.

  13. I’ll add one to this. I recently saw an article who’s headline was something like this, “Two new polls show majority want new gun control”. They went on to mention the Pew and Gallup polls, but only cited numbers from the Pew poll (I checked them). That’s right, after invoking the Gallup and Pew polls as both supporting their premise, they omitted any numbers from the Gallup poll because they don’t in fact support that premise.
    That isn’t just bad journalism – that’s outright deception!

    (I cant find the exact one I mention above but below is another article using the same tactic, They invoke two polls and only mention or cite from one of them! EDIT: the second poll appears to be a CBS news poll, which is mentioned in one line. But you get the idea.
    http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/polls-show-rise-gun-control-support-newtown-article-1.1224812)

  14. I have stopped listening to anything that is broadcast on TV or printed in the papers. This is just another fine example of the sensationalism that even news reporting has come to be. I see it as all those reporters and writers out there seeing their industry die to the Interwebs news listings and they trying to claw what they can out of it before the layoffs and shut downs put them on the street.

  15. Old media tactic, make your side bars bigger so the sheep will ignore the actual numbers. Quite the same as those politicians who say (truthfully) that their popularity rose 100% (from 1% to 2%) and hope some idiot will jump in the bandwagon. Frankly, nowadays it only works for those people so goddamn lazy they can’t even be bothered to read past the tittle.

    • it only works for those people so goddamn lazy they can’t even be bothered to read past the title

      So it works on 47% of Americans.

  16. The worst part, for them, is you know if they are going to stoop so low as to change the way their graph looks to make it seem like people support the awb then they went as far as trying to call people who they thought would support it in the first place. I would love to see a complete overview of the responders- I’d bet money that they have more people from CT in that poll then they would on other issues. Even with that they can’t make their side look supported. Put up the poll that showed +60% favored an awb right after the shooting- support for an awb will continue to decrease as knee jerk reactions start fading and people actually go back to common sense.

  18. Graphical shenanigans aside, if it were illegal to manufacture actual assault rifles (“semi-automatic guns known as assault rifles” is like “hairy birds known as bats”), who in the heck would be arming our soldiers?

  20. And on the third slide, they ask about “high capacity ammunition CLIPS that hold more than 10 rounds”. Maybe I’m nitpicking, but given how many times this has come up, I’m wondering if they are using the wrong terms just to spite us?

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