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America: It's Our Right to Bear Arms

Josey1Josey1 Member Posts: 9,598 ✭✭
edited May 2002 in General Discussion
America: It's Our
Right to Bear Arms
ABCNEWS.com Poll Finds Most
Support Individuals' Right to Own Guns

Analysis
By Daniel Merkle



May 14 - Americans overwhelmingly agree with the Justice Department's new position that the Second Amendment guarantees the right of citizens to own guns. But most also favor some restrictions on that right.


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After hearing the Second Amendment verbatim, 73 percent in an ABCNEWS.com poll said it guarantees the right to individual gun ownership. Twenty percent said, instead, that it only guarantees the right of states to maintain militias - the government's longstanding position until the Justice Department reversed it in a U.S. Supreme Court brief last week.

Sampling, data collection and tabulation for this poll were done by TNS Intersearch.
Most do support some restrictions on this right, with 57 percent of Americans favoring "stricter gun control laws." That's about the same as it was last year, but 10 points below its peak. And "strong" support for gun control, at 39 percent, is down seven points since last year, to its lowest in 10 years. (The government's new position, likewise, says gun ownership should be "subject to reasonable restrictions.")

Previous polling by ABCNEWS has found that larger majorities support specific measures such as background checks at gun shows, mandatory trigger locks, handgun registration, banning assault weapons and licensing handgun owners. But nearly six in 10 have opposed a nationwide ban on the sale of handguns, except to law enforcement officers.

Gun control hasn't ranked as a top-tier issue. Few think new laws would substantially reduce violent crime, or would be more effective than better enforcement of current laws.


Stricter Gun Control Laws
Date of Poll Favor Favor "Strongly"
May 12, 2002 57% 39
Jan. 15, 2001 59 46
May 10, 2000 67 50




Tighter Controls Favored

Support for stricter gun control rises to just under seven in 10 women, Democrats, nonwhites, and Northeasterners. It even reaches a slim majority, 51 percent, of those who say the Second Amendment guarantees gun ownership.

Large majorities in all demographic groups agree with the Justice Department's new view on gun rights, peaking among men, whites, Republicans and residents of the South and Midwest. Even 65 percent of those who support tougher gun laws agree, as do 66 percent of women and Democrats.

The government's new position states that the Second Amendment "more broadly protects the rights of individuals, including persons who are not members of any militia or engage in active service or training, to possess and bear their own firearms, subject to reasonable restrictions designed to prevent possession by unfit persons or to restrict the possession of types of firearms that are particularly suited to criminal use."

The amendment itself states: "A well-regulated militia, being necessary to the security of a free state, the right of the people to keep and bear arms shall not be infringed."


Gun Rights and Gun Control
Constitution grants
right to guns Favor stricter
gun control
All 73% 57

Men 80 44
Women 66 69

Age 18-34 68 62
Age 65+ 69 51

Whites 76 56
Non-whites 63 68

Democrats 66 69
Independents 75 64
Republicans 82 42

Northwest 65 68
Midwest 77 54
South 77 56
West 68 54




Methodology

This ABCNEWS.com survey was conducted by telephone May 8-12, among a random national sample of 1,028 adults. The results have a three-point error margin. Sampling, data collection and tabulation was conducted by TNS Intersearch of Horsham, Pa.

More ABCNEWS polls can be found in our PollVault.

http://abcnews.go.com/sections/us/DailyNews/guns_poll020514.html


"If cowardly and dishonorable men sometimes shoot unarmed men with army pistols or guns, the evil must be prevented by the penitentiary and gallows, and not by a general deprivation of a constitutional privilege." - Arkansas Supreme Court, 1878

Comments

  • badboybobbadboybob Member Posts: 1,658 ✭✭✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    Most anything can be proven with a poll, all you have to do is phrase the question in such a way that it slants the answers in the direction wanted.

    PC=BS
  • cpilericpileri Member Posts: 447 ✭✭✭
    edited November -1
    badboybob:
    That's called "begging the question" it is one of the first fallacies of argument taught in Logic classes.
    'The phrasing of the question presumes the answer'

    Other favorites include;
    Fallacy Ad Hominem: basically attacking the speaker "You're wrong because you're a (fill in the blank)"

    There's plenty more.





    _________________________
    "The day that they come get your guns, is just
    one day before they use them on you!"
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