- Oct 10, 2006
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Because the legislation involved more than background checks?
Basic survey reading fail.
I wish people had to pass a basic test on how firearms work before they were allow to vote on them.
Actually it was voted on Amendment to Amendment, and we very well could have gotten Universal Background checks and little else if the votes had been there.
That and the question asked specifically notes universal background checks, and that was the big issue in the news. I would think someone who wanted background checks but was opposed to everything else would be in the "None/Other" category as opposed to "very happy/relieved".
The question asked about legislation as a whole, of which background checks were a part.
The rest of your post is baseless speculation.
Basic poll reading failure.
If the question was meant to be about the legislation as a whole, why did it note universal background checks and nothing else? They put in that little factoid just to jog people's memories?
Have you ever wondered why the individual parts of the Affordable Care Act are generally very popular but the act itself is not? It's because there are more considerations when you talk about legislation in the aggregate than when you talk about individual issues.
Your OP is based on a fundamental misreading of what the poll question asked. That's really the beginning and end of it.
You didn't answer my question.
Last I checked half the poll question asked about Universal Background Checks.
If they had asked "What word best describes how you feel about the Senate voting down new gun control legislation last week?" I'd concede your point.
No, the question was about the legislation, mentioning that it included background checks. That is nowhere remotely the same.
If someone asked 'How do you feel about Obamacare, which includes a ban on denials for pre-existing conditions?' Do you think the results should be the same as a question of 'how do you feel about a ban on denials for pre-existing conditions?' Of course not.
Seriously, your OP was just wrong. 90% indeed.
Likewise the results also wouldn't be the same as asking "How do you feel about Obamacare?"
If I ask you "How do you feel about fruit, which includes bananas?" You're probably going to be thinking about bananas when you answer. That's just basic human psychology.
You didn't answer my question.
Last I checked half the poll question asked about Universal Background Checks.
If they had asked "What word best describes how you feel about the Senate voting down new gun control legislation last week?" I'd concede your point.
There is a reason why its the Pew Research Center, it stinks.
The problem here is with the person reading the poll, not the poll itself. Pew is an excellent pollster.
The questing is leading the people polled. The poll is therefore a joke. The OP correctly pointed out the psychology behind the question even if you think his interpretation is wrong, that point, is correct.
I agree that the question is badly worded; that doesn't make the OP any less wrong.
But somehow it makes what you are saying more right? WTF?
I'm not even sure what your point is anymore. You seem to be agreeing with me that the question didn't ask what you claimed it did.
I never claimed it asked solely about background checks. However, the fact that background checks received massive amounts of media attention, were very much the focal point of the legislation, and are directly mentioned in the question, make its numbers applicable, if perhaps not to a precise figure, to whether people want universal background checks or not.
At the very least, I think it debunks or at least poses a great challenge to the validity of 90% figure and/or what everyone has been saying said figure represents. I've heard that 90% figure touted as the penultimate symbol of American unity on a controversial issue. Yet now 39% of people are apparently happy to see it go, even with poll language effectively making it the center of the question.
It would appear 90% is bunk in terms of representing legitimate, practically applicable public opinion. At best it might represent that 90% of people are in favor of the theory of background checks, but not the reality.
Uhmmm. Yes. What aren't you understanding?
His OP clearly argues that because of the results of this poll, previous polls putting support for background checks at 90% must have been wrong.
I told him that you cannot get that information from the polling question provided because that's not what the question asks. That is pretty indisputably more correct.
Seriously, your OP was just wrong. 90% indeed.
There is simply no way you can get that conclusion from the data presented; this is just confirmation bias, wishful thinking, and unfounded speculation.