Gallup On Guns

[ancianita]

https://news.gallup.com/opinion/gallup/262724/gallup-guide-public-opinion-guns.aspx?utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=o_social&utm_term=&utm_content=&utm_campaign=&fbclid=IwAR11mo_GWogxj0EuOXs0tTuQv6ARvfNaXs2etgt0rJdLNEqaBIipZCB_J7E


Looking through Gallup's links is good data knowledge. Gallup is the oldest and largest poller in the U.S. It also has the largest sampling numbers, which make it the most valid and reliable polling we have.

Gallup's key data on gun violence and gun policy.

-- Americans support stricter gun laws in Gallup's most recent updates on gun trends, but the majority don't embrace bans on handguns and assault rifles.

Six in 10 Favored Stricter Gun Laws in October 2018

U.S. Majority in 2018 Opposed Ban on Assault Rifles

-- Gallup finds widespread support for background checks and other restrictions on gun purchases.

Americans Widely Support Tighter Regulations on Gun Sales

-- The importance of gun control as a voting issue has increased in the past two decades.

One in Four Will Only Vote for Candidate Who Shares Their Views on Guns

-- Americans supported six of seven ways to deter mass school shootings a month after the 2018 school shooting in Parkland, Florida, with Republicans and Democrats agreeing on five.

Public Opinion on Solutions to School Shootings

[Downtown Hound]

1. Gallup is far from the most reliable pollster

They may not be the worst (that goes to Rasmussen), but they're only B rated at 538 and they had Romney winning 2012 on the eve of the election.

https://www.realclearpolitics.com/epolls/2012/president/us/general_election_romney_vs_obama-1171.html

Quinnipac, Pew, and ABC are consistently the most accurate.

[ancianita]

2. According to 538? 538?? And realclearpolitics.com, eh? Well, then.

And what are their polls showing about American gun issues? Please proceed.

[Downtown Hound]

4. You can always look it up yourself. n/t

[ancianita]

5. You lose if you make a claim and show no proof. I've at least got polling history in the OP.

from Wikipedia:

From 1936 to 2008, Gallup Polls correctly predicted the winner of the presidential election with the notable exceptions of the 1948 Thomas Dewey-Harry S. Truman election,[citation needed] where nearly all pollsters predicted a Dewey victory (which also led to the infamous Dewey Defeats Truman headline[according to whom?]), and 1976, when they inaccurately projected a slim victory by Gerald Ford over Jimmy Carter.[citation needed]

For the 2008 U.S. presidential election, Gallup correctly predicted the winner, but was rated 17th out of 23 polling organizations in terms of the precision of its pre-election polls relative to the final results.[48]

In 2012, Gallup's final election survey had Mitt Romney at 49% and Barack Obama at 48%, compared to the final election results showing Obama with 51.1% to Romney's 47.2%.[49]

Poll analyst Nate Silver found that Gallup's results were the least accurate of the 23 major polling firms Silver analyzed, having the highest incorrect average of being 7.2 points away from the final result.[50] Frank Newport, the editor-in-chief of Gallup, responded to the criticism by stating that Gallup simply makes an estimate of the national popular vote rather than predicting the winner and that their final poll was within the statistical margin of error.

Newport also criticized analysts such as Silver who aggregate and analyze other people's polls, stating that "It’s much easier, cheaper, and mostly less risky to focus on aggregating and analyzing others’ polls."[51]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gallup_(company)#Accuracy

Nate Silver is a poll aggregator. Period.

Gallup has spent 80 years building representative sampling of the U.S. population. That's where the strength of polls lie. Sampling.

Question: Have you ever studied graduate level statistics? Or statistics?

[Downtown Hound]

6. You want proof that Gallup is only B rated at 538?

One simple visit to their site would prove that to you.

https://projects.fivethirtyeight.com/trump-approval-ratings/

Each polls rating is listed right to the right of the pollster. Scroll down a little and you'll see Gallup has a B.


And I already provided you with a link showing that they got 2012 wrong. Now given that I made no other claims other than Gallup is far from the most reliable pollster, exactly what do you want me to show proof of that I have not already shown?

[ancianita]

9. Okay, cool. But it's 538, begun in '08. Who rates 538? 538!

In the 3rd largest country on the planet, Gallup has the largest sampling and longest running experience.

Polling statisticians learned from Gallup before statistics was even a course at college levels.

I stand by Gallup for reliability.

Doesn't mean that other polls aren't useful and accurate.

But Gallup, Pew and Reuters are the polls that come closest to representing public opinion.

Anyone can find any poll to back up his/her opinion.

But when it comes to the issue of guns, parties, states and regions aren't the way to determine what the public thinks is in its best interests. Big polls are.

Here's one from 538 on guns. Cuz what the hell. Information is information.

https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/gun-deaths/

[Downtown Hound]

19. Feel free to rate 538 however you want

But they have been consistently right time and again, so ignore them at your own risk. They were pretty much dead on in every election since 2008, and even came very close to what the popular vote ended up being in 2016, and they were very close in predicting the 2018 midterms almost down to a T.

So who rates 538? I dunno. I would say their record rates them just fine.

[Thekaspervote]

18. Thank you for your informative post.. with links!!

[spanone]

3. it appears it's not up to the people or congress...it's up to the NRA.

FUCK THE NRA

[hunter]

7. Most U.S. Americans can't be bothered enough with guns to own one.

An even greater number don't let anyone they'd care to shoot live in their heads.

This has severely limited the market for new guns.

[ancianita]

11. I'd like to believe it. I know how to use a gun but wouldn't own one. Still, the existence of guns

is a reality we have to reckon with in other ways.

"American civilians own nearly 100 times as many firearms as the U.S. military and nearly 400 times as many as law enforcement."[8] Americans bought more than 2 million guns in May 2018, alone.[8] That is more than twice as many guns, as possessed by every law enforcement agency in the United States put together.[8]

In April and May 2018, U.S. civilians bought 4.7 million guns, which is more than all the firearms stockpiled by the United States military.[8]

In 2017, Americans bought 25.2 million guns, which is 2.5 million more guns than possessed by every law enforcement agency in the world put together.[8]

Between 2012 and 2017, U.S. civilians bought 135 million guns, 2 million more guns than the combined stockpile of all the world's armed forces.[8]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gun_ownership



https://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2018/12/27/facts-about-guns-in-united-states/

This reality is not insignificant for all of Americans who don't own guns.

[hunter]

23. I've shot and killed and made dinner of animals I've eaten, but not in the 21st century.

Mostly now I'm vegetarian.

I've never let anyone I'd care to shoot live in my head.

I used to be pretty good at shooting. Maybe I still am but I don't care.

When I was a kid my Wild West grandmothers and great grandmothers were the property owners. Their husbands were dreamers. I'm probably a dreamer too. My wife's family is similarly Wild West matriarchal.

I remember with stark clarity when one of my grandfathers was developing a gun fetish. He'd been in Army Air Corp officer in World War Two for Christ's sake until his mother-in-law told him she'd poison his dinner if he brought any guns into the family city house which she owned, the house which he and my grandma lived in, the house my dad grew up in.

When his mother-in-law passed my grandfather's foolish interest in guns was rekindled briefly until his wife and my mom brought the hammer down. He was a brilliant engineer who'd landed men on the moon, but he was a bloody fool with guns.

I think one of my most terrifying moments as a child was watching my grandfather ride a bicycle... grandpa is going to die! It's the same reason the Army never trusted him to fly an airplane, not more than once or twice. But he had some mad skills in dealing with high technologies and other eccentric people similar to himself, people essential to the war effort.

My dad, and my wife's dad both served in the military, and both refused arms. My dad was a Radar O'Reilly medical clerk, my father-in-law was a Navy medic assigned to the Marines. It was just dumb luck neither ended up in Korea. My father-in-law was used as a guinea pig in nuclear weapons testing. He's one of the few people I've met who have witnessed an atomic bomb explosion up close and been marched around nuclear wastelands that were still on fire.

[ancianita]

26. Thanks for your story. Fascinating. I remember vets who wouldn't go near firearms, too.

My dad, for instance. And my uncles.

There's a lot of mystique around the power to cause death, and a lot of caché.

And until someone shoots a gun, and feels its power, their sense of where gun owners are, what gun ownership can mean -- about the life decisions they've knowingly or unknowingly made, with all the threat/risk calculations different locations and situations entail -- people just can't quite grasp it. And yet here we sit, surrounded by more guns than all the militaries of the world have.

I've noticed that no matter how many good guys with guns there are, they don't use them during mass shootings. They don't defend the victims. That's some risk/threat calculation I don't even want to think about, or I'll probably get mad.

[sarisataka]

8. I only believe polls

That match my opinion, all others are flawed

[elocs]

10. The trouble with sarcasm online is that there are people who believe

exactly as you are sarcastically saying.
Even here at DU there are people who do not believe polls unless it agrees with their point of view.

[sarisataka]

14. Indeed

Sadly it is not uncommon that people so desire to believe their opinions are correct that they will ignore any and all data that shows otherwise.

They are then shocked when the outcome is different than what they expected. Often, however, it matches the polls they rejected.

This holds true across the political spectrum.

[elocs]

16. I have written things and made them so broadly and obviously sarcastic

that I could not see how anybody could miss it, but they do and I get an "Amen!" and "Preach it brother!" type response.

[hunter]

24. Most people in the U.S.A. can't be bothered to own a gun, second amendment or not.

That's where gun love dies.

[elocs]

12. Despite what Americans believe, what will this Supreme Court do,

how would they rule on its constitutionality when they hear a lawsuit on it and it's sure that a lawsuit would be brought by the NRA at least.

[ancianita]

13. A change in the national situation and total harm done could be weighed against the NRA's tired

old rights argument. The NRA lives for lawsuits, sure. But.

When the competing Right to Life, Liberty, etc. is weighed against the Right to Bear Arms, the court might just decide to emphasize the "Well regulated militia" spirit of 2A, thus allowing congressional regulation.

It could happen, I believe.

[elocs]

15. This conservative Supreme Court would make that ruling?

But I forgot, this is DuLand where if you wish something to happen then it just must happen.
Reality is no barrier here.

[ancianita]

21. We're more grounded in reality here than a lot of 20-somethings whose cerebra haven't yet developed.

Not judging. Just sayin'.

[elocs]

22. I've noticed more of a "wishing makes it so" attitude

in the years I've been here. Reality be damned.

[ancianita]

25. I hear you. I myself would rather be a wrong pessimist than a wrong optimist. And so do others,

when it comes down to decision making.

But don't conflate wishing with optimism around here, or the perspective building that fights against the human tendency of "negative bias." Obama won on hope and change. And the country is better for erring on that side than accepting the dark side of humans as "inevitable."

The negativity bias,[1] also known as the negativity effect, is the notion that, even when of equal intensity, things of a more negative nature (e.g. unpleasant thoughts, emotions, or social interactions; harmful/traumatic events) have a greater effect on one's psychological state and processes than neutral or positive things.[2][3][4] In other words, something very positive will generally have less of an impact on a person's behavior and cognition than something equally emotional but negative. ... it exists in a lot of domains, politics being one.

In politics ... Research points to a correlation between political affiliation and negativity bias [47] [48], where conservatives are more sensitive to negative stimuli and therefore tend to lean towards right-leaning ideology which considers threat reduction and social-order to be its main focus.[49]

Individuals with lower negativity bias tend to lean towards liberal political policies such as pluralism and are accepting of diverse social groups which by proxy could threaten social structure and cause greater risk of unrest.[50]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Negativity_bias#Politics

[sarisataka]

17. SCOTUS has ruled

Congressional regulation of firearms is constitutional. The only thing they have ruled unconstitutional is completely prohibiting civilian ownership.

[ancianita]

20. Right. So there's room for "well regulating" rulings that support eliminating military weapons, etc.