CBS News Poll Reveals Anti-Gun Rights Bias

“As the anniversary of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School approaches, one third of Americans –  and women in particular – say the level of gun violence in the United States today is a crisis,” CBS News reports, “and most call it at least a very serious problem.” That’s the news network’s take away from a telephone poll of 1,120 randomly selected adults that they commissioned. Setting aside the fact that  . . .

gun owners picking up the phone in a solidly pro-gun household aren’t likely to talk to a pollster about firearms, check out the wording in the graphic above.

For one thing, the term “gun violence” is prima facie prejudicial. For another, note the option “allow more law-abiding citizens to carry guns.” Allow? That assumes that the right to keep and bear arms is a privilege, not a right.

Anyway, thanks to the [rarely-seen] link to the questions asked and the full response stats [click here to view], CBS anti-gun rights bias is clearly revealed.

The graphic at the top of this post leads readers to believe that Americans see “stricter gun laws” as a better solution to “gun violence” than “allowing” law-abiding Americans to tool-up by a margin of 41 to 29 percent.

Yes, well, the survey results above show that 40 percent of respondents think stricter gun laws would do “not much” or “nothing at all” to “prevent gun violence.” Compare that to this . . .

According to this data, 51 percent of respondents think that “allowing” more public firearms carriage would do “a lot” or “some” to “prevent gun violence.”

Bottom line: carrying guns in public beats stricter gun laws for preventing “gun violence” by 50 to 40 percent. Well, that’s how I spin it. By revealing only the results of the answer “a lot” to the options, CBS leads readers to believe that the majority of Americans favor “strict gun laws” more than armed self-defense.

Hang on. What does the term “stricter gun laws” mean?

The CBS-funded poll doesn’t define it. Could a respondent consider harsher penalties for firearms-related crime “stricter gun laws”? D’uh. And that would create more than a little overlap on answer e.

Again, CBS’ graphic only lists the percentage of respondents who answered “a lot” to the tougher sentencing solution (48 percent). If we combine “a lot” and “some” a staggering 74 percent of respondents support tougher sentencing for criminals and gang members as a way to “prevent gun violence.”

That pretty much squares with the 60 percent support for “stricter gun laws.” It also beats the pants off the other methods to “prevent gun violence” — except the 89 percent total support for “better mental health screening.” Which tells me that Americans see crazed mass killers as a serious threat. And nothing more.

You see how this works? Not only do “serious” news organizations taking polls on firearms-related issues start with an anti-gun bias, they end with it too. Fake news indeed.