Again, I feel obliged to point out that Americans have a Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms. There’s only one way to remove that right legally: ditch or amend the Second Amendment. Meanwhile, here’s some new research from the Mayors Against Illegals Guns’ agitprop front group demandaplan.org: “Solid majorities of Americans, including gun owners, also support a ban on assault weapons. Eighty one percent of those polled, including 71 percent of gun owners and 60 percent of NRA members, favored renewing the federal ban. Findings like these demonstrate strong and decisive support for common sense gun violence prevention legislation that would protect both the safety and rights of all Americans.” No to both, methinks. But that’s pretty startling stuff. Is it true? It sure look like a sandbag job . . .
Click here to read demanddisarmament’s “Interested Parties Memo” detailing the survey. Which includes the following opening statement . . .
Douglas E. Schoen, LLC conducted a national survey with a random sample of 1,800 likely voters. Our sample contained an oversample of 400 gun owners and 200 NRA members. The survey took place on December 27 – 29, 2012.
I’m no Nick Leghorn, but that description raises some questions about the findings.
First, Schoen is a Democratic operative who’s headline clients include Bill Clinton and Michael Bloomberg, the Mayors Against Illegal Guns’ founder and sugar daddy (surprise!). The survey was conducted by his company Penn Schoen Berland, a British-owned PR firm. Not an independent polling group.
Second, the sample size is laughable: just 600 gun owners. Third, the sample questions and survey methodology are notable by their absence. We don’t know how the questions were phrased. And fourth, the survey was held in December, less than two weeks after the Sandy Hook slaughter.
Regardless of the sham stats generated by this sham exercise, it’s revealing in its own special way. Check out this chart, which somehow didn’t make it onto the demanddisarmament website:
See what they did there? “Protecting the rights of gun owners (as opposed to protecting the Second Amendment)” vs. “the responsibility of citizens (not gun owners) to protect people from violent crimes caused by guns.” This is what’s called a “false choice,” a favorite technique of car salesman (e.g., “do you want it in red or blue” not “do you want to buy this car”).
Here’s the other chart left off the main site:
This time we get a reasonable first choice (“The government has no right to take guns away from law-abiding citizens”) vs. another almost completely irrelevant “counter” position (“Anybody who owns a gun has to take responsibility for using it safely and keeping it secure so it can’t be misused.”).
That’s just sick. How dare they use the words “clear and unambiguous” to describe the results of this shell game? Clearly, unambiguously, no propaganda technique is too low for the civilian disarmament industry. They will lie, cheat, mischaracterize and misdirect to further their agenda. An agenda that will cause untold death and lead to the erosion of all our rights.
Anyone who values their Constitutionally protected right to keep and bear arms should do what they can to tell the truth about guns, lest they get drowned out by the noise generated by those who would destroy this country’s way of life in the name of progress and safety.