The Second Amendment – Growing Support & Groaning Scoundrels

By C.D. Michel

San Diego, CA –-(Ammoland.com)-  Never doubt the linguistic and logical limberness of professionally coached [privately funded] anti-gun activists.

People in gun control circles are circling their wagons in reaction to a recent Pew Research report definitively showing that more Americans support the Second Amendment than support gun control.

Pew’s multi-decade survey on gun control again asked one basic question (among others), namely: “What do you think is more important – to protect the right of Americans to own guns, OR to control gun ownership?” Since any form of gun ownership control is an infringement of the right of Americans to own guns, it is a succinct and reasonably worded question. In the most recent instance of this survey, six percent more Americans think that protecting gun owner rights is more important than enacting gun control.

This isn’t the first time the majority has favored rights over restrictions, though in Pew’s previous polling the margins have been much thinner. Anyone who has watched tracking polls of the past few decades knows that this is the culmination of a long term trend, and is surprising only in as much as Pew’s research appears to be a little behind other surveys (though Pew’s poll was called an “outlier” by an outright liar from a gun control obsessed, maniacal medical school). But members of the media nonetheless flatly proclaimed incorrectly that this was the “first” time Pew had seen gun rights being more popular than gun anti-rights.

Maybe this explains why only 40% of the public trusts the news media.

The backlash to Pew’s polling was predictable. Sympathetic left-of-center members of the media sought the opinion of gun control activists to flavor their “reporting.” My favorite was Media Matters, an organization specifically devoted to attacking non-leftist journalism. For a printable quote, they tracked down an assistant professor at the Joyce Foundation funded Center for Gun Policy and Research. Her CV states that she “focuses on how public policies affect mental health, substance use, and gun violence” and also notes that her education is “in Health Policy and Management” but does not mention a background in research methodology design. So when she told Media Matters that Pew’s research was an “outlier,” she either willfully ignored other polling or pulled the conclusion out of her antidepressant pill bag.

Other “news” outlets did their normal job of distracting readers from the news item itself. The Los Angeles Times, long a champion of gun control, spent most of their article reciting recent episodes of gun violence before quoting a highly questionable report from a Michael Bloomberg financed gun control group. The New York Times took the exact same approach, but pestered a different anti-gun owner activist at the Center for Gun Policy and Research, whose pre-coordinated response matched his coworker’s.

The one surprising bit of journalism came from the BBC, who actually reported the story in a straight forward way, and only stepped lightly into activism by correctly noting that some other polls suggest varying support for some very specific gun control laws.

Lost in the hubbub is the long view, both forward and back.

Pew and Gallop polls both show an enduring trend toward respecting gun ownership rights and away from more gun control (with an understandable reversal of the trend in the immediate aftermath of the Sandy Hook massacre). The reasons are many, but most stark among them is that people have come to terms with the fact that gun control does not reduce violence. Between expanded gun rights (which occurred during a period of plunging violence) to witnessing the utter lack of lawfulness by the primary perpetrators of gun violence (inner-city gangs), people have come to the realization that gun control simply doesn’t help, and that 11+ million concealed carry permit holders have not made things worse. Despite misperceptions concerning the rate of violence (it is now down to the levels of the early 1960s), Americans don’t perceive efficacy in gun control, but do see the efficacy of shooting their attacker.

People have come to terms with the fact that gun control does not reduce violence.

No doubt an MSNBC-watching friend of family member will nonetheless try to tell you that the Pew poll is bad research and an outlier. Remind them that the poll has been a consistent measurement over multiple decades, and that it echoes the findings of Gallop and other non-affiliated research organizations. Remind them too that ignoring long-term trends is admitting they are on the wrong side of an issue.

Then knock back some egg nog and toast the new year..

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