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7 Things WaPo Got Wrong About the 6 Things the NRA Will Hate in New Survey
The Washington Post tries hard, (very, very hard) to come up with six things that they think the NRA won’t like about a recent Pew survey on guns. In fact, they tried so hard to come up with six things, they list out seven reasons in the article.*
- The overwhelming majority of gun owners are not members of the NRA
- Nearly 3 in 10 gun owners say the NRA has too much influence over gun laws in
- Some key NRA policies have little support among gun owners.
- Many gun owners want stricter gun laws.
- A quarter of gun owners say guns are very important to their personal identity.
- Americans say gun violence is shockingly common.
- Gun owners are three times as likely to have been shot as non-gun-owners.
Whoops.
Let’s break down each of those six, ummm, seven things, and see if they really are things that the NRA will hate.
- The overwhelming majority of gun owners are not members of the NRA. No kidding. The overwhelming majority of car owners aren’t members of AAA, and the overwhelming majority of old people don’t belong to the AARP. However, those two organizations are still the dominant players in their respective demographic groups, and like those two groups, the NRA is the dominant force that speaks for the concerns of gun owners.
- Nearly 3 in 10 gun owners say the NRA has too much influence over gun laws in this country.Or to put it another way, nearly 70 percent of gun owners are satisfied with the NRA’s influence over gun laws in this country, or think the NRA doesn’t have enough influence over gun laws in this country. It’s all in how you spin the data, and this tidbit is spun rather poorly.
- Some key NRA policies have little support among gun owners.Or, 67% of gun owners have no opinion or support concealed carry without a permit. I’d also I’d really like to see the specific wording on the terrorism watch list question: I think you’ll find that everyone, gun owner or not, believes that keeping guns away from terrorists is a good idea. The question is, then, will this happen by using the so-called “no fly” list, a list that has very serious civil rights issues.
- Many gun owners want stricter gun laws. Once again, this is portrayed as something the NRA should be worried about, rather than stating the obvious fact that majority of gun owners believe that the NRA is on the right side of the issue. For myself, I don’t want stricter gun laws, I want better enforcement of existing laws, such as actually enforcing straw purchase laws and put people behind bars when they buy guns for felons.
- A quarter of gun owners say guns are very important to their personal identity. I’m in the “top three percent” of gun owners, and even I wouldn’t say guns are important to my personal identity. My desire to protect myself springs from my desire to keep my loved ones safe, and a firearm is merely one of the more effective ways to do that. If I could keep them as safe by other means, I’d use those means instead of a gun.
- Americans say gun violence is shockingly common. That’s troubling, but I fail to see how that is something that the largest firearms training organization in the world should be worried about, other than it’s an indication that there is more need for safe, effective training in how and when to use a gun.
- Gun owners are three times as likely to have been shot as non-gun-owners. Wait, weren’t there supposed to six things on this list? Where did this one come from? Well, since it’s here, let’s talk about it. In the article itself, the author admits that gun owners are more likely to get shot because they’re around guns more often, and accidents do happen. And in other news, people who own scissors are more likely to be hurt while running with scissors.
One interesting tidbit in the survey that’s not mentioned as something that the NRA should love is the fact that two-thirds of today’s gun owners say they own a gun for personal safety. Not hunting. Not target shooting. Not collecting. Personal safety. And yet, despite this fact, the Democrats continue to conflate the Second Amendment with the right to go hunting or the right to shoot skeet, as if the men who wrote the Constitution were worried about the 13 colonies being overrun by white-tailed deer and clay pigeons, rather than a tyrannical, oppressive government.
* Look at the URL of the story: /news/wonk/wp/2017/06/22/7-things-the-nra-will-hate-in-pews-new-gun-survey-and-5-things-it-will-love/. Somewhere along the line, they decided to change the headline, but nobody told the person who posted it online. Layers and layers of fact-checkers, indeed.
Published in Guns
A huge problem about this is that it is often based on a lack of knowledge of current gun law. If the MSM tells people that an MS-13 member can walk into a Walmart or into a “gun show” and walk out with an M-16, of course they will demand stricter gun laws.
I have to admit, #2 really made me chuckle. The NRA is supposed to “hate” the “fact” that nearly 30% of gun owners think the NRA has too much influence over gun laws. Seriously? The WaPo thinks the NRA would even care about such a ludicrous statistic? As you’ve pointed out @kevincreighton, that means that over 70% of gun owners think the NRA has enough, or not enough influence over gun laws! And this on top of the fact that “the overwhelming majority of gun owners are not members of the NRA.” So, counting all gun owners – the overwhelming majority of whom don’t even belong to the NRA – over 70% of those gun owners think the NRA has enough, or not enough influence over gun laws, and less than 30% of all gun owners think it has too much influence. Do the WaPo editors even read the copy they run?
Anti-gunners mention this a lot. Half the people in this country are women and how many of them are members of the National Organization For Women? According to their web site, over 500,000. But no one questions that NOW is the premier organization for women’s rights, despite the fact that fewer than 1% of American women are members. What percentage of black people are member of the NAACP? The NRA has way more members than those two organizations plus the ACLU put together.
Excellent rebuttal, Kevin.
“Today, three-in-ten U.S. adults say they own a gun…”
“Overall, 19% of all U.S. gun owners say they belong to the NRA.”
0.30*0.19=0.057
I’ll conservatively ballpark 300 million Americans @ 75% adult for 225 million adult Americans. 0.057*225,000,000=12,825,000.
NRA claims less than half that number.
Another question about #7: Did they find out how many people became gun owners after having been shot or shot at? Something like that can really focus the mind.
In a similar vein, I know someone who took up jujitsu after being mugged and made it to black belt in a year and half.
My wife has a BSc in stats. She has a tendency to laugh derisively at every one of these MSM articles. Virtually none of them ever uses stats correctly or honestly.
You also have to figure in the number that own guns but aren’t saying. I don’t know that that percentage is that great, but I do think there’s a decent amount.
All of this is part of the anti-gun left trying more ways to persuade Americans that no one needs nor should have access to firearms. None of the laws that restrict law-abiding citizens from having guns and any of the normal accouterments that are associated with guns (such as standard capacity magazines) have any effect whatsoever on criminals having guns. That fact alone should stop the left in its tracks, but they don’t even take notice of it.
I’m against all laws that restrict peaceful law-abiding citizens because I know criminals are going to have guns no matter how many gun control laws are enacted. I’d like to repeal most of the gun control laws now in place because these laws are useless. These laws empower criminals and endanger innocent people. Few appreciate how little they would miss these stupid laws once they were gone.
There are just 4 possible scenarios for guns in America: (1) Everyone has access to guns; (2) nobody has access to guns; (3) Only Cops have guns; (4) only criminals and cops have guns.
Actually, I tricked you. Numbers (2) and (3) are not possible. Not even in the USSR were those possible. Only (1) and (4) are actually possible to exist. If that’s the only choice, which makes most sense?
The only constant is a fifth one I didn’t mention, that being only criminals have guns. That one is always possible, even if the cops are disarmed. Is that the one the left would choose? Probably.
There are some gun laws that do work. Heavier sentences for criminals who use a gun to commit a crime has resulted in lots of criminals deciding not to take a gun to their next crime.
When reading or hearing anything that purports to quote statistics, then see words like “many,” “most,” “few,” etc. I know that the writer / speaker is relying on some sort of study, the results of which are not favorable to his/her position. If it can’t be stated objectively, then it isn’t a statistic at all.
They were told when they went into journalism that there would be no math.
And having both tutored and dated a journalism major who needed to pass Statistics for the Numerically Enfeebled, there isn’t much.
“It’s not fair that she only makes 75% of what he makes. Why should he make 25% more?”
“He doesn’t make 25% more. He makes 33% more.”
The point I wanted to make here, Is that if you remove the word “Gun” from your point, its still correct. The Untied States has a violence problem, fixing that is far more complex than taking away guns. Their isnt a political solution for that, (that Ive heard) so they focus on an area, where they can make meaningless ‘progress’ and hope the real problems go away.
There is also this: Some gun owners are, frankly, snobs. “I only ever hunted with my Winchester .30-30, I don’t see why semi-auto whiz bang rifles should be legal for taking a deer! In fact, I don’t think they should be legal at all.” As I recall, the editor of a hunting magazine was sacked for uttering such a thing. There is also the birds and clays group who (still) thinks that more restrictive gun laws will never ever touch their hobby.
Let’s not forget those who think the NRA is too squishy and so are members of other groups, like NAGR.
And you are substantially more likely to die in a car wreck if… you are in a car.
*whistles innocently*
The NRA also operates on a small budget than many much smaller (in terms of members) organizations.
Well, sure. I mean, which deep-pockets foundations are feeding them the big money?
I used to work with a guy – a Democrat, big surprise – who thought handguns should be illegal but figured that the people who are pushing for that would never want to come for his rifle or shotgun. His reasoning was that the rifle and shotgun are used for hunting and everybody respects that. But handguns are only useful for murder, so nobody should have one.
Yeah, well what happens when something comes crashing out of the brush and you don’t have time to aim your rifle? Although I did know a guy who hunted deer with a handgun.
My uncle does the same thing. He asked one time why anyone would need a machine gun, and I didn’t have the chance to respond. Which was good, because later I came up with “For suppressing enemy infantry, obviously”.
“Do you need to suppress enemy infantry?”
“Well, no. Not right now, but who knows what the future holds?”