2aHawaii
General Topics => General Discussion => Topic started by: Flapp_Jackson on June 25, 2018, 01:15:31 AM
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Study Finds Fewer People Willing to Answer Questions about Gun Ownership
A common thought (maybe even a rational one) is that gun owners hesitate to share their status as gun owners in surveys.
It makes perfect sense, particularly in times of heightened concerns that anti-gun politicians are plotting to restrict our 2nd
Amendment rights and the routine vilification of law-abiding gun owners by politicians, celebrities, and the media. A recent
study confirmed that more people are refusing to answer questions about firearms ownership.
Iowa State University political scientist Robert Urbatsch analyzed data from the General Social Survey (GSS) and found that
the number of people refusing to answer a question about gun ownership roughly tripled since the year 2000. The increase
appears steady from the year 2000 through 2016 and Urbatsch found the increased non-response rate concentrated among
Republicans (though the rates among Democrats and Independents also increased). Coincidentally, Pew recently confirmed
that gun ownership is far more common among Republicans – meaning, the people driving the increase in the GSS question
refusals are also those most likely to own a gun. Go figure.
Urbatsch discusses how this increase could be driven by increased polarization, by political elites' and partisan commentators'
fear-mongering, or by distrust of government and an institutionalized belief in individual autonomy. For some reason, more
people are hesitating to share their gun-owning status with a stranger on the phone conducting a survey for the government.
This isn’t new. Take a look at the Gallup trend below; notice the sharp increase after 1993…right around the time Congress was
working on a major gun control effort (the 1994 assault weapons ban). In December 1993, less than 0.5% of respondents refused
to answer that question. In July 1996 (the next time the question was asked), 2% of respondents refused. The number
acknowledging they had a gun in their household dropped from 49% to 38% in the same time period. The percent refusing first hit
4% in October 2009, then hit 4% again in October 2013 and October 2014 – when anti-gun politicians controlled both the White
House and the Senate. The number of refusals dropped from 2016 to 2017. A simple trend line does not indicate causation…
but one major difference between 2016 and 2017 was the political outlook. In 2016, there was a concern that a historically anti-gun
politician could win the Presidency; by October 2017, President Trump had secured the White House.
https://www.nraila.org/articles/20180622/study-finds-fewer-people-willing-to-answer-questions-about-gun-ownership
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Sorry, I lost all my firearms in a boating accident.
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Sorry, I lost all my firearms in a boating accident.
Aliens from Alpha Centuri beamed them up..... :shake:
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Sorry, I lost all my firearms in a boating accident.
I once worked with a county police chief that was fired for some crime
or abuse of power.
He said to follow the law and register, but suggested using the
excuse that you lost all your guns
when you were drunk and gambling as a better excuse,
if they come for them.
I like living in Hawaii.
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Guns scare me, and I frighten easily................
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Guns scare me, and I frighten easily................
Pictures and talk of guns frighten me.
I'm only here as part of my Cognitive Behavioral Therapy. :shake: