You know how the prohibitionists have been claiming that 90% or more of NRA members want to ban so-called “assault rifles” and “high-capacity magazines” and are in favor of universal background checks?
And you’ve noticed that virtually none of the NRA members you know have ever expressed such self-harming sentiments?
Of course, no one outside the NRA had the wherewithal and member list to poll members of the National Rifle Association.
So, the NRA did.
Here, thanks to former NRA President Marion Hammer, is the real story: her words follow, in Italics.
Don’t Believe What Pollsters Say about the Gun Control Views of NRA Members
Time and again national pollsters insist on reporting how NRA members and other gun owners feel about gun control. Don’t believe a word of it.
None of these pollsters has access to NRA’s membership list. NRA strictly protects its membership list and doesn’t give it to mainstream media types, pollsters, solicitors or anyone else. It is a private list and always has been. Anyone who claims to have access to NRA’s membership list is not telling the truth.
Pollsters simply ask people they survey if they are NRA members or gun owners. However, they have absolutely no way to determine whether the information they get is accurate. So despite their claims, they can’t accurately say how NRA members or gun owners feel about gun control.
In gun control polls conducted by national pollsters, it is folly to believe that gun owners tell pollsters the truth about NRA membership, gun ownership, or their views on gun control. NRA members and gun owners aren’t inclined to share their personal information with people they don’t know.
No one wants to be put on any kind of list of gun owners and that absolutely applies to lists created by pollsters for anti-gun clients.
It is folly to believe gun owners tell pollsters the truth about NRA membership or gun ownership. It is even folly to believe the majority of people, whose privacy is interrupted by a pollster, tell pollsters the truth about anything.
The media love to cite national polls that claim NRA members and gun owners support gun control. That’s because they’re trying to push a gun control narrative, and the “poll results” fit their political narrative. But that doesn’t make it true.
The only legitimate poll of NRA members ever done was a national scientific survey commissioned by NRA. It surveyed 1,000 randomly-selected NRA members across the country and found that NRA members are united on today’s issues.
- 92 percent oppose banning the sale of firearms between private citizens.
- 92 percent oppose background checks on the sale of firearms between private citizens.
- 89 percent oppose banning so-called “assault weapons.”
- 93 percent oppose gun registration.
- 91 percent SUPPORT laws to keep guns out of the hands of people with mental illnesses.
That is the only legitimate survey of NRA members in existence.
NRA members and other law-abiding gun owners know better than to believe anything they read, see or hear in the mainstream media about NRA membership views or gun owner views on gun control. You should too..
Marion P. Hammer is past president of the National Rifle Association and executive director of Unified Sportsmen of Florida. She represents both organizations in Florida.
Now now, the liberal loonies would never do anything like that, would they????
There has got to be a way to hold these people accountable for their false statements without stooping to levels as low as they have gone. I am just so sick and tired of the lies and mis information!
Hate to state the possible obvious but how do we know there even was a poll that resulted in NRA members being so opposed to guns? The results are so ridiculously inconsistent with the basic fundamentals of NRA membership it’s impossible to believe that their poll is at all credible. THey could have tried to tell a lie that wasn’t so impossible to believe but the people who spread these lies are too stupid to think maybe their claim is so out there it’s totally unbelievable.
The truth cannot be anything but the truth, except to 48% of people who identify as liberals, dimocrats, resisters of legal authority, resisters of laws of this country … ad infinitum.
I remember the shameless chicanery that the anti alcohol pressure groups resorted to in the 1980s to get the largely Democratic Congress to pass a little gem which successfully blackmailed over half the states to raise their minimum drinking age to 21 from 18-20 in those affected (30 or so), which Reagan fell for oddly enough. And how did they push it along? You guessed it. Polls, and two things. One was the way they were worded, and two, who the pollsters asked. Result? The rights of millions of young adults were erased.Does anyone else notice how the antis have been using that magic number of 21, used almost nowhere else in the world, to again take a swipe at us after Parkland? I did, right away.
My feeling is and always has been the same as Charleton Heston simply stated “From my Cold Dead Hands”!!!!
The other approach to debunk that statistic is to borrow the antis’ “common sense” standard.
Whatever you think of politicians, they do know how to count votes. If 90%+ of voters agree on anything, it becomes law. If 90% of voters, much less NRA members, wanted the sky to be green, Congress would drop everything else they were doing and pass “Green Skies” legislation, and the President would sprain his wrist to sign it.
The simple fact that the “common sense” gun laws haven’t passed either Congress or the majority of state legislatures tells anyone with common sense the voter support can’t even be 55%.
As my statistics prof said, “Don’t cite numbers that make children giggle.”
I can “poll prove” anything. It’s how you ask the question, and where you ask it. 100 church goers will say one thing, 100 strip club customers will say the opposite. Who’s and Where.
In search of a well-rounded education, I usually attend strip clubs immediately after church.
This being the accurate truth, perhaps NRA could mount a campaign to identify those lying pollsters who connect their skewed “results” with NRA’s good name. Perhaps a few “cease and desist”orders, perhaps some actions for libel, defamation, etc, would put an end to such name grabbing as is done by these traitors attempting to disarm us.
The NRA should shift the argument to bad behavior and no moral standards. Good people are not mass murders.There is a fatherless crisis not a gun crisis.
Typical Liberal LIE, to then Be “Quoted”, as Gospel”, by All the “Bought & Paid For,” in Their Pocket, Liberal TV, Print, or Other, Main Stream Media, Talking Heads, to Further Brainwash All of Today’s “Sheeple”, who the Liberal’s then Recruit to Stage Their So-Called Spontaneous Demonstrations, & Other Dirty Work, for the “Moneyed” Liberals!!
Polls to me, can be used to persuade public opinion. Polls, can be used to mislead the public, I’ve met more than a few people, that knows nothing about assault rifles. Whose to say a Glock 17, that can accept a magazine that holds more than 10 rounds, won’t be considered an assault weapon.
The late Nazi propaganda minister Paul Josef Goebbels is smiling proudly from Hell at what American liberals are doing to deceive the uneducated masses in this nation. He admitted in the 1930’s that his effective tactics of misleading the public were copied from liberal Americans of the very early 20th century. A very wise man once said something like, “Those who don’t know history are doomed to repeat it’s mistakes.”
We can be thankful for the NRA and other gun organizations. Without them the RKBA would be gone or whittled away. Also, there was a time when the NRA was not interested in politics. Some members saw that we were being attacted politically, and they were able to get the NRA to fight back.
The last line in the poll says 91% of NRA members support laws to keep guns away from people with mental illnesses. That sounds reasonable until you realize some Leftists believe people who vote for Republicans, or believe in God, or who don’t believe in man-made climate change, are mentally ill.
I am a psychologist who does research for a living- specifically in psychometrics/data analysis- quantifying human behavior. I am also a proud American, gun owner, and NRA member. Because the poll results that are presented in Big Media are often used for political purposes, critical thinking by consumers of this information is extremely important.
Informed consumers should look at the survey questions for biased wording and definitions of key terms (e.g., “assault weapon,” “gun control,” “common sense,” etc.). To me- “common sense gun control” might mean “constitutional carry” or “I control my own guns responsibly.” But “common sense gun control” probably means something quite different to a gun-grabber. If key terms are not defined for survey respondents, then those terms might be interpreted differently by different people- and the aggregate data cannot be easily interpreted. To folks like me- it’s a classic example of “garbage in, garbage out.” As a peer-reviewer of scientific papers- I can tell you that this happens more often than you might think!
One should also look to see if survey items assess for respondent KNOWLEDGE of the issues that the survey is addressing (e.g., how many people in the general population realize that the term “assault weapon” as applied to civilian gun ownership is a made up political term?). What good is a survey of people ignorant of the issues? It’s like surveying people who have absolutely no interest in football if the Super Bowl should still be played on a neutral field.
Just as important is looking at the survey methodology- especially the sampling method. One of the key questions to consider is- to what extent is the survey sample representative of the population that we want to learn something about? This was a BIG issue in the 2016 presidential election- and it was clear to me at the time that many sampling models were based on 2012 turnout and unlikely to be representative of the turnout for 2016. Thus, I still had hope that Trump would win.
Look beyond the poll results before drawing conclusions. Look at the methodology- which is sometimes hard to find- but not impossible.
We are fortunate to have folks like Dr. John Lott who critically analyzes empirical studies, and has the ability to reach a wide audience. He is wonderful at distilling the often complicated methodological and statistical issues into easy-to-understand terms. Pointing out strengths and limitations of methodology helps the public at large reach their own conclusions about a study.
And we might not be able to trust the large professional organizations such as the American Psychological Association (APA) to better understand important issues. From my personal experience, I have seen the APA become a political activist organization- and its research priorities and mission are now clearly liberally biased. It has become hard to trust the “research-based” information they release on some issues- especially the biased information they present on firearms (or the term they most often use “gun violence”). After 25 years as an APA member- I terminated my membership this year because I refuse to be part of this movement. I signed up to be a scientist with the support of an unbiased professional organization. I know I’m not the only one who has left APA. Don’t get me wrong, APA still does very important and worthwhile things- but to me the organization is tarnished.
In the end, the political use of data is obviously problematic. It is sad to me to see the disregard of objective evidence in the pursuit of political goals. If data “don’t matter” as much as they used to- then at least critical thinkers who inform themselves on the issues can cut through the BS as a way to preserve the search for truth and our civil liberties.
Thank you for that thoughtful and cogent analysis of statistics in general and poll-taking in particular. It calls to mind the adage “Figures can lie, and liars can figure.”
The NRA efforts, to refute leftist lies about its members, is just a small part of it. The left and their media lapdogs have been spewing out disinformation at a breakneck pace. Indeed, it is a steady-stream of hysteria and wild propaganda. The main reason for it is that they are losing. It is all collapsing for them. Let me see if I can use an analogy to explain why.
Most of us (that are old enough) have seen stock market crashes and panics over the years. We know the pattern of it. The market will begin to overheat. Prices get pushed higher and higher. Then the speculators jump into the market. Some people caught up in the furor become obsessed with greed. A huge bubble will form in the market. Then, one day (seemingly out-of-the-blue), the bubble bursts and the market crashes. People who went out-on-a-limb and invested everything they own in the market get burned badly. If it is bad enough, some may even go crazy and throw themselves out of a window somewhere.
A similar thing has happened here in the “Political Market” of the U.S. For decades, the American Left has been building political power-bases. They built them in the mainstream media, in the education system, in Hollywood, and in Silicon Valley. Then, they got their man (President Obama) into the White House. He used his power to politicize the Washington bureaucratizes and build a “Deep State”. The Marxist-Socialist Left truly felt that they were on their way to transforming American from a Representative Republic to a Marxist-Socialist State. They saw themselves seizing power and holding it forever. They saw America being made into a One-Party State in the mold of China and California. Being true Marxists, they rejoiced at this prospect. All that was required was to fix the 2016 Election so that Hillary would win and continue with Obama’s transformation. The DNC, the media and the Deep State worked hand-in-hand to fix it so that Hillary would win. Like market speculators, they were caught up in the furor of the moment. They were drunk and greedy with their lust for power. They did not see the formation of a giant “Political Bubble” in response to their excesses.
However, a bubble had formed, and it burst on Election night. Their market crashed. I am sure that many of them wanted to jump out of the window. Certainly, many tears were shed.
The left still had their power-bases, so they immediately tried to intervene in the political market crash. They tried to rescue their investment. Indeed, every day since that November 2016 Election Night, they have desperately tried to take out President Trump and get back onto the Marxist-Socialist track. Their efforts are failing, and their political market continues to fall. By this point, they are truly crazed about the crash in their market.
What happened on Election Night 2016 was a Political “Correction” that is slowly bringing the American Political Market back to the Center. However, this “Bear Market for the Left” is just getting started. It won’t be finished until the power-bases, built by the left, are also dragged back to the center. The Left spent decades building their machine to subvert the American System. It will take years (at least) to dismantle it.
That is why we can’t afford to relax. We must continue to vote for America in November 2018 and 2020 and for many elections yet to come. We must continue this correction to bring America back from Marxist-Socialist Extremism. If we slack off, the leftists will simply use their power-bases to re-built their political machine for yet another effort to “Transform America”. They will never stop because their greed for absolute power is insatiable. The lust for power is the only thing that true Marxists know or understand. Nothing else, and I do mean NOTHING ELSE, matters to them.
Right On, TN_MAN, I hear you Loud and Clear!
Paul
TN_MAN,
I think you hit the bull’s eye with your analysis. I’m waiting to see if the Left will become like their Bolshevik brethren and begin to assassinate their enemies. So far, so good. I would call them Fabian Socialists, because they don’t want to resort to bloody violence, and that is a good thing. However, I think the Clintons have had people bumped off in secret in the past. This has all been covered up, and hopefully there won’t be any more of it. I guess it depends on how much the Left really wants to attain their political goals. If you think about it, there is really too much law & order in America for any group to succeed using violence against people. The police will pounce right on anyone using violence, other than just breaking windows and setting fires to buildings, like Auntie Fa (sic).
All the Left really needs is one example of Marx’ ideas actually working in the real world. His big government ideas fail everywhere they are tried. If the Left could improve California, or even Detroit, using their ideas, then maybe they could be successful at selling their collectivist ideas to the rest of us. They’ve been trying since 1848 and they can’t succeed anywhere.
China switches to government controlled capitalism, and boom, their economy improves. Hong Kong was capitalist a long time ago, and it is a big success story, along with South Korea. The Left just can’t win. It’s time for them to give up.
Here are the scientific formulae which can be deduced from these economic experiments;
Marxism = Scarcity
Capitalism + Law & Order = Abundance
There is a certain balance which is necessary for capitalism to work. Conditions must be right, but then it works very well. In America, we have too much stuff, and that is a good thing. Better too much than too little.
@ Roger Willco,
You are correct. Our current crop of leftists have not “Progressed” to out-and-out assassination of their political opponents yet. Although one gets the impression that they are sliding in that direction since the very sight of a Conservative, eating a meal in a restaurant, is offensive to them and worthy of mob harassment.
No, at the moment, their favorite tactic is “Character Assassination” rather than actual “Physical Assassination”. I anticipate that, any day now, they will trot out some woman who will claim to have been sexually harassed by Justice Brett Kavanaugh (27 years ago) and who will then proceed to paint Justice Kavanaugh as a rapist and, for good measure, a racist too!
After all, all straight white men are rapists and racists in their book. Justice Kavanaugh is white, isn’t he? He is a straight man, isn’t he?
Well, there you go. In their mainstream media reports, the Judge will be found “Guilty, as Charged”.
Probably, the Leftists will wait until Justice Kavanaugh is appearing in his hearings before the Senate before unleashing the accusations and media firestorm. That is when it will have maximum impact. Just like they did with Justice Thomas.
Well Mr. Boggs, I don’t know what the final results were, but I did participate in a recent NRA poll that asked those questions. So it did happen. I’ll note that the poll was free of the usual “have you quite beating your wife?” type questions and slanted choices. Simple yes/no/no opinion.
I’m curious how you can determine that the results are “inconsistent with the basic fundamentals of NRA membership” without knowing the questions much less the population sample.
TNMan – a simply great analogy. I recently heard a local Conservative radio guy say that this type of massive change has occurred twice. The first time, a genuinely nice man named Ronald Reagan was President. The left reacted in a relatively civil manner. When Donald Trump won (I never get tired of saying that!), the “velvet glove came off and the punch in the mouth hasn’t stopped. So, the left is now showing their true colors and attacking as the animals they really are – and have always been. IMO, this is one of the reasons why the millennials are behaving the way they have been. The really naive ones can’t believe that their leaders are so….nasty. I am lovin it!
@ Don -Pa
Thank you for the kind words. I hope that you noted the irony in my analogy. I used the behavior of the Capitalist Stock Market to explain and characterize the recent actions of the Marxist-Socialist Left.
And it fits them perfectly! Isn’t that just delicious?
Just a little extra twist of the knife! 🙂
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