Funkula
2667
That’s an interesting poll, but I’m not sure how useful it is. I had to dig to find any info on the methodology, and what I found was this:
PoliceOne’s Gun Policy & Law Enforcement survey was conducted between March 4 and
March 13, 2013. More than 15,000 officers completed the survey, which was promoted
by PoliceOne exclusively to its 400,000 registered members, comprised of verified law
enforcement professionals
So it sounds self-selected on two levels. You have to have already been a member of this organization (which, to be fair, claims members numbering about half the total number of cops in the United States). Then you have to have responded to a solicitation for the poll.
The people who deal with gun crime most in the country seem to disagree with her pretty strongly when it comes to this issue.
http://www.policeone.com/Gun-Legislation-Law-Enforcement/articles/6183787-PoliceOnes-Gun-Control-Survey-11-key-findings-on-officers-thoughts/[/QUOTE]
Yeah, that reeks of bullshit. I don’t pretend to know what every cop thinks on the issue, but those numbers are so lopsided it strains credulity, especially when virtually every police association has come out in strong support of gun safety laws. Plus, it’s a fucking online poll, not a scientific study.
Aside from that, if you wanted to argue against Gabby Giffords, why don’t you engage what she actually says instead of resorting to a bogus argument from authority and sidetracking any actual discussion. Why did you feel the need to immediately distract from it?
Seriously… reminds me of that 90% bullshit number the media is throwing around.
90% may or may not be high, but I think four polls in the 83-91% range certainly says that a large number of Americans are in favor of increased background checks.
blah
2671
It’s 15,000 law enforcement officers, and I’ll take their opinions in a higher regard than some politician. And it’s not sidetracking the discussion it’s showing what cops think as opposed to what a politician believes when it comes to gun legislation and it’s impact on gun violence. And what “virtually every police association” are you talking about? The suits that have to stand up and say that shit or the actual officers who deal with this stuff? Because I see and hear time and time again policemen denouncing this stuff and claiming that even if it passes they wouldn’t enforce it. Hell, I’m around cops all the time and to a person they say the same things that the majority of the ones in that poll say.
Yeah, it’s not a scientific study, but neither is the opinion of one politician either. It’s laughable that you’d discount a sample that size in favor of one person.
blah
2672
Yeah, when you ask an absolutely vague question like that of course they do. But when you start getting in to what “increased” means I think the numbers would change significantly.
I’d think that number needed some corroboration at first glance, too, if it was just thrown out there without any credible evidence instead of, you know, someone citing virtually every major polling outfit coming up with the same answer. The claims made in the Police One poll, as a representation of the opinion of American police officers, are extraordinary for many reasons besides the absurd lopsidedness alone, anyway, including that it goes sharply against conventional wisdom borne from common sense (police don’t want to be outgunned by armed criminals) and past surveys of police chiefs and associations, and also just some bizarre claims that don’t pass the smell test like, “A full 60 percent feel that casualties would have been avoided completely in recent tragedies like Newtown and Aurora if a legally-armed citizen was present.” Even if these claims weren’t extraordinary, the methodology alone discredits these claims as representing the views of police officers nationwide.
She isn’t just some politician, and you could give a fuck about actual officers or the victims of violence. Pointing at this bogus poll which doesn’t even ask about background checks in response to the Gabby Giffords article (seriously, it doesn’t even refute anything she actually wrote) about our bought Senate, and the feelings of anger and determination of the victims of gun violence was a complete non-sequitur. You’re just trying to distract.
blah
2674
She is just a politician. The fact that she was shot by some lunatic doesn’t give her some remarkable insight into this issue any more than the next person. As far as not giving a fuck about actual officers, that’s a laugh, like I said I’m around them all the time. Half my fucking family are either officers, detectives, or are in the law enforcement field in one form or the other. Even outside my immediate family I’m surrounded by friends who are also in law enforcement, including one who was shot in the neck during a robbery in Atlanta 25 years ago (and is paralyzed because of it) and as I said to a person they agree with the things that poll showed. Just because it doesn’t jive with your personal agenda doesn’t make it bogus.
Why don’t you try actually looking around the site and understanding what it is before you act like a clown by accusing me of bullshit.
Edit: And for the record, both questions 10 and 21 ask about background checks, so clearly you didn’t read the actual content of the survey…you should try it before commenting further. I’d also like to point out that this poll has 15 times as many participants as the types of polls you guys are constantly quoting as scientific, and their method of conducting this survey is every bit as credible as any of those.
PoliceOne’s Gun Policy & Law Enforcement survey was conducted between March 4 and
March 13, 2013. More than 15,000 officers completed the survey, which was promoted
by PoliceOne exclusively to its 400,000 registered members, comprised of verified law
enforcement professionals. Only current, former or retired law enforcement personnel
were eligible to participate in the survey. The survey sample size was broadly distributed by geography and rank in proportion to the U.S. law enforcement community at
large. Respondents comprised a variety of ranks from departments of all sizes, with the
majority representing departments of greater than 500 officers. Of those that took the
survey, 80 percent were current law enforcement officers and 20 percent were
former/retired law enforcement.
National polls on gun control issues are almost worthless, because, as this thread has amply demonstrated, even otherwise well-informed people have an enormous blind spot when it comes to knowledge of gun laws already on the books. Polling for favorability on ‘universal background checks’ suggests to the average low-information respondent that there aren’t nearly-universal background checks already (repeating that stupid 40%-of-sales-have-no-checks number constitutes a willful falsehood; more than half of the study’s data comes before the present background check law).
That said, the PoliceOne survey is of limited use for actually estimating how police feel about gun control overall, but it’s very handy as an object lesson. Either it’s an accurate reflection by chance, which doesn’t seem particularly likely, or it’s faulty because of selection bias, which goes to show you that the enthusiasm gap between gun rights advocates and gun control advocates remains pretty huge.
In other survey-related news, there’s been a reversal since about 2000 on the question of whether a gun in a household makes it safer. Not much surprising in the demographic breakdown, although I would have liked to see some minority responses.
My fault for not reading the full PDF rather than your link and other breakdowns on the Police One site all of which failed to mention background checks for some reason. If I’m feeling overwhelmingly cynical, I’d think it’s because it didn’t yield the results they wanted getting by far one of the most mixed responses even if support is far below that of the public by actual scientific surveys. I strongly disagree with you that the poll is a measure of anything useful for reasons already stated, but more than that, it’s not in any way a direct response to the Gabby Giffords editorial as you implied when you posted it in direct response. I encourage you to read it, though how you could not consider her a credible voice on gun safety is something I can not understand.
You say the polling is worthless because the public doesn’t understand that everyone already gets a background check when they buy a gun, apparently a misunderstanding shared by the vast majority of gun-owners and NRA members as well. What makes you think background checks are anywhere near universal for legal purchases? What makes you think people are misled by the question, “Would you support or oppose a law requiring background checks on people buying guns at gun shows”?
Ranulf
2677
It all depends on what you define as background check and universal. For it to be “universal” all guns have to be tracked by the government.
At most gun shows guns are bought through FFL dealers which already requires a background check. Oregon closed the “loophole” in 2000 or so and the law is pointless overall. You can still sell them privately and a few folks do still sell them at gun shows and use the state police system for checks as required by law. Or you know they setup a time to meet later on at a mall parking lot to do a private sale. But the internet cut into private sellers at shows already (and dealers somewhat). Dealers probably like these laws because it forces people to buy through them and if a new law went through requiring it I’m betting most dealers would not want the hassle or liablity. The dealer is surprisingly not making a large profit maker on the guns themselves. We’re talking a 10% tops profit margin and many dealers make you pay the credit card processing fee usually 3%.
The gun show loophole was already a “carve-out” exception to entice compromise during the 1968 gun control act or the 1986 ones I forget which. The overall point is criminals will get guns no matter what silly laws you create to hamper the law abiding. Laws ultimately only help or hurt the law abiding. Oregon requires that all people get a prescription for sudafed/cold medicine. Strangely enough meth is still available in Oregon six years later. At least the Feds only require you hand over your ID for what is essentially an after the fact background check to keep track and limit your purchases to a certain amount per week or whatever that 2006 fed law requires.
For me sudafed costs $25 co-pay + appointment wait time (24+ hours ) + med cost. I feel so much safer now… thanks Oregon legislators! Oh I forgot I could try going to a basic med clinic but odds are they’ll charge me $100 or so to see a doc there. It is cheaper even with gas at $3.50/gal to drive 70 miles to WA state to buy fucking COLD MEDICINE and morons like you want to make me a slave to a bunch of fucking GI joe surplus wannabe soliders going door to door with their red dot sights on backwards looking for ONE FUCKING PUNK ASS TEEN TERRORIST. Goodbye 1st thru 4th ammendments.
PS my comma key has apparently died. Dammit.
Personal experience with purchasing guns at gun shows and over the Internet, and the first-hand experience with the effect presently-existing gun laws already have on purchases of those sorts.
What makes you think people are misled by the question, “Would you support or oppose a law requiring background checks on people buying guns at gun shows”?
As Ranulf said, background checks are already required at gun shows for anything going through a dealer or any transaction that would cross state lines. I haven’t been to many gun shows, but I’m pretty sure ‘a few’ is more than you can claim, and of the several hundred booths I’ve walked by across all the shows (some large, some small), not a single one was a private seller. With that considered, the poll question is misleading–it implies that there’s a significant number of gun purchases at gun shows that don’t go through NICS, which is simply not true.
I’m not even necessarily opposed to the idea of requiring a NICS check for private transfers (with an option for some form of licensure/pre-clearance), provided ‘transfer’ is defined as ‘a permanent transfer of ownership’, and not ‘handing someone else a gun you own’, as the last alleged compromise bill tried to do*. The problem is that no gun legislation will ever be that simple, because nobody on the left would think it goes far enough, and I really doubt the NRA would like the idea, either.
I’m more worried that it indicates that over 60% of officers who responded wouldn’t obey the law. That’s a major problem.
Sarkus
2681
While most (all? Not sure, seems to vary by state) gun shows require dealers to be FFL’s and follow the rules, the issue with gun shows is that a lot of people show up with guns to sell and meet buyers, then complete what are currently legal private transactions. Only a handful of states require private sales at gunshows to get background checks done. What percentage of private sales happen at gun shows is not clear, though BATF seems to think its signficant. The nature of the show itself - lots going on, open environment, time constraints - also means that dealers are sometimes sloppy or that it attracts the kind of dealers that are sloppy to begin with. BATF stings indicate FFL’s are more easily fooled into allowing straw purchases, for example. We don’t have comprehensive data on most of this, though.
olaf
2682
I finally shot the 91/30 I got recently, today. Wow!, what an awesome purchase for the money! It was $135 total, including shipping and the FFL transfer. That makes it the cheapest gun I have ever bought. 7.62x54R milsurp ammo is also relatively cheap, I was able to get 4 cans of 440 count ammo for about 23 cents each shipped. Which is cheaper than anything I can buy right now outside of 22LR (when you can even find that cheap). Tremendous literal bang for the buck. Using the the rifles iron sights as they arrived, it was about 4 MOA up and right off of center. I wasnt shooting with the bayonet attached, which seems to be recommended. I attached it but I am not a great iron sights rifle shot and since it obscures the front post, I just took it off.
RichVR
2683
From what I’ve read, some were factory zeroed with the bayonet on and that makes a difference. That’s a good price. I’ve been interested in getting one for a bit. But I need to save my money for ammo these days.
Sarkus
2684
They had a lot of 22lr at Cabela’s today in my area, so maybe that is finally improving. I bought as much as I was allowed, which was one box. Lol.
RichVR
2685
OTOH Luckygunner, a bulk ammo online place has zero .38 ammo. A place that I’ve gotten stuff from before.
Being shot in the face counts as being involved in gun crime.
EDIT- whoops, I just replied to a really old comment. Please go on talking about whatever the fuck this thread has devolved into.
