USA Today Poll on Gun Control

By Dean Weingarten

Arizona – -(Ammoland.com)- A USA Today editorial against citizen disarmament is in the latest edition.  It is written by Robert Farago, in defense of an armed population.  It is a companion piece to the pro-disarmist piece from the USA Today editorial department.  There is a poll on gun control with each opinion piece.  Words have enormous power.  The poll for the disarmist argument is almost split, with about even numbers agree and disagree.  It will not surprise you that I believe that there are many distortions and fabrications in the piece.  I recommend that you read both editorials.  Much can be gained by considering what arguments the opposition is using.

In Farago’s response, there is the same poll, with responses from strongly agree to strongly disagree.  In that poll, 79 percent of the responders strongly agree with the Second Amendment supporting position.

Here is Robert Farago’s closing paragraph:

As the French terrorist attacks proved, gun control doesn’t work. Worse, civilian disarmament leaves innocent people defenseless against killers. Gun control enables — rather than prevents — homicide.

Poll results for the Second Amendment supporter, Robert Farago’s response:

Strongly agree  79%
Agree   5%
Don’t Know 1%
Disagree   3%
Strongly Disagree 12%

 Link to the poll (right hand side) on Farago’s article

Here is the summation paragraph from USA Todays article:

The work of reducing the gun carnage that has come to define America in the rest of the world will not be done quickly, but it has to begin.

Poll results for USA Today’s argument for more, strict, gun laws:

Strongly agree  35%
Agree   11%
Don’t Know 5%
Disagree   13%
Strongly Disagree 36%

Link to the poll (right hand side) on USA Today’s article 

Notice that the assumption of the article is that it will take many years to get the solution that they want.  To anyone who has studied the issue, what they want is to reduce the United States to an essentially gun free society, much like England has become, where the allocation of who can own a gun, and for what reason, is left up to the people in charge of the instruments of state power, which most certainly will not be the mass of the American people.

USA Today is owned by Gannet.  Gannet publications have been reliably pushing the disarmist agenda across the board.  It is a sign of some balance that USA Today allows for contrary views to be carried by their publication.  They are to be commended for their willingness to allow the opposition space in their publication.

Much of the debate on imposing more and more infringements on the Second Amendment, versus removing infringements imposed over the last century, comes from radically different assumptions about reality.   It is my belief that the editors of USA Today are not consciously evil people.  They simply have false assumptions about the nature of reality.

One of those assumptions seems to be that ordinary people cannot be trusted with firearms.  Another is that governments are always beneficent and the American government could never turn against large segments of its own population.

People with false assumptions about reality cannot change them easily.  They have built their entire lives based on them.

Definition of  disarmist
c2014 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included. Link to Gun Watch

About Dean Weingarten;

Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of constitutional carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and recently retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.