LA Times misleading gun poll article

[TxD]

Poll numbers here:
http://www.mayorsagainstillegalguns.org ... ponses.pdf" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

Misleading article here:
http://www.jsonline.com/news/opinion/82436102.html" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;
"For instance, 69% of NRA members and 86% of non-NRA gun-owners support closing the "gun show loophole." ........... Gun shows provide hunters, collectors, sportsmen and gun enthusiasts with a great place to shop - but as the Department of Justice has reported, 30% of guns in illegal gun-trafficking cases are linked to gun shows.

Rebuttal here:
http://bigjournalism.com/wthuston/2010/ ... more-11818" onclick="window.open(this.href);return false;

[marksiwel]

I caught this
"When asked whether they supported or opposed a ‘proposal requiring all gun sellers at gun shows to conduct criminal background checks of the people buying guns,’ 69% of the NRA members and 85% of the nonmembers were in favor. This goes to the so-called gun-show loophole, which allows used-gun merchants to sell firearms without doing the background checks that are required when selling new guns. Attempts in Congress to close this loophole have died after meeting strong opposition from the NRA."

Are they talking about FLL Dealers or Private Sales?
FLL Dealers by law have to do the background check, Private sellers dont.

Also a private seller can buy a gun and sell it the same day, does that make the gun "Used"?

I've posted about how I feel about Private sales, so I wont dig it up here, but these "Facts" the first link brought up are bogus.
Anyone else remember that video about how with a few word changes you can make a poll say whatever you want?

[Ashlar]

Luntz's group's motto is "It's not what you say, it's what people hear." 'nuff said. Well, maybe not..

If the question had been worded differently, such as the following, I bet the response would have been quite different:

"Would you like to end the practice of being able to sell a firearm to another state resident, even a friend or family member, without having to find a federally licensed firearms dealer, pay a fee, present ID, fill out a form, and inform the government?"

[The Annoyed Man]

I was initially impressed with Luntz the first few times I heard him on Fox News, and so I bought his book "What Americans Really Want...Really: The Truth About Our Hopes, Dreams, and Fears" and read it. By the time I was finished, I was less sanguine about him. I do believe that some of what he says makes sense, but his problem is that he is too clever by half (or thinks he is) and that he loses sight of what the numbers actually mean because he is focused on what he can make them mean to his clients. He is actually more about language than numbers. And his primary focus seems to be using his language skills to interpret results in a way calculated to find a common ground on which opposing sides in a debate can meet to work out their differences. In other words, his focus is reconciliation, sometimes at the expense of truth. I'm kind of an absolutist when it comes to what I believe to be truth. A thing is either right, or it's wrong; if it is wrong, there can be no reconciliation with it. Also, what he does is more like a survey than a real poll.

His use of audience response software is interesting, but not really ground-breaking. We have a member here, HighVelocity, who has been doing electronic audience response stuff for years now. The technology and its possible applications are interesting, but Luntz isn't doing anything that isn't being done by lots of other people. He's just famous because he is applying it to political issues. But the problem with that, in my view, is that lots of people are easily swayed by charisma and the creative selling of political manure. Thus, how they respond on a given political issue on Monday, may vary widely with how they respond to the same issue on Friday. The only audience response that counts in politics is the one that happens on election day.

[cougartex]

I was initially impressed with Luntz the first few times I heard him on Fox News, and so I bought his book "What Americans Really Want...Really: The Truth About Our Hopes, Dreams, and Fears" and read it. By the time I was finished, I was less sanguine about him. I do believe that some of what he says makes sense, but his problem is that he is too clever by half (or thinks he is) and that he loses sight of what the numbers actually mean because he is focused on what he can make them mean to his clients. He is actually more about language than numbers. And his primary focus seems to be using his language skills to interpret results in a way calculated to find a common ground on which opposing sides in a debate can meet to work out their differences. In other words, his focus is reconciliation, sometimes at the expense of truth. I'm kind of an absolutist when it comes to what I believe to be truth. A thing is either right, or it's wrong; if it is wrong, there can be no reconciliation with it. Also, what he does is more like a survey than a real poll.

His use of audience response software is interesting, but not really ground-breaking. We have a member here, HighVelocity, who has been doing electronic audience response stuff for years now. The technology and its possible applications are interesting, but Luntz isn't doing anything that isn't being done by lots of other people. He's just famous because he is applying it to political issues. But the problem with that, in my view, is that lots of people are easily swayed by charisma and the creative selling of political manure. Thus, how they respond on a given political issue on Monday, may vary widely with how they respond to the same issue on Friday. The only audience response that counts in politics is the one that happens on election day.