Numbers Suggest Media Hiding Waning Support For Gun Control :: 02/14/2020

As Democrats battle for the chance to face President Donald Trump, both they and their anti-gun allies continue to argue that gun control is popular with the American people. They swear up and down that most people want gun control.

To be fair, the polls we’ve seen publicized have said as much. The numbers suggest that people want more gun control.

However, are those numbers still valid?

While looking at something else, I came across Gallup’s website on polling regarding guns. I noticed an interesting number.

Here’s a screenshot:

Note how it shows in 2020 the total number of people satisfied with the status quo on guns and the number dissatisfied and wanting stricter guns are the same at 42 percent. Further, five percent are dissatisfied and want to keep laws the same with nine percent wanting less strict laws. That means 56 percent of the population has no interest in passing new gun control laws.

That’s well outside the margin of error on polls like this.

Yet, where was this in the press? Why isn’t this being talked about?

To be fair, it’s also possible that this is some kind of a misprint as there’s no data for 2019, which seems odd. However, it doesn’t really matter when those numbers originate from, the numbers remain the same, and they also remain at least relatively unreported by the media who routinely shares Gallup’s numbers on virtually any other issue.

Why is that?

It’s just easier for someone if everyone thinks the majority of the public supports new gun control legislation. Of course, that’s just speculation on my part, but it’s also the most plausible reason to publish every bit of Gallup’s findings other than this particular one. Politicians will cite the old, now bogus, claims and the voting public will accept it because they haven’t seen anything in the news arguing otherwise.

Again, that’s just speculation.

While Gallup has done a bang-up job sharing every big of anti-gun data they can muster, they apparently haven’t shared these particular numbers with much of anyone. They’re not exactly trying to hide them, though. They’re on the website plain as day, along with all the other polls that say other things.

As a result, I’m inclined to believe the media just didn’t want to report on it. They got a press release about the findings from Gallup but opted not to report on them simply because they didn’t like the news.

That’s part of what media bias really is, after all. It’s not just how the news is reported, but what is reported. This wasn’t.

To be fair, there may be an innocent explanation for this. I’ve sent an email asking for clarification, but as of publication, I’ve not heard back from Gallup. In fact, I’d actually prefer there to be an innocent explanation.

Regardless of that, though, what we can plainly see is that despite presidential candidates and op-eds claiming the American public is clamoring for more gun control regulations, that’s simply not the case.

No, the pendulum on gun control is starting to swing back toward sanity. The anti-gunners moment is over. That’s good for the rest of us, even if the media would rather no one know about it.

Tom Knighton is a Navy veteran, a former newspaperman, a novelist, and a blogger and lifetime shooter. He lives with his family in Southwest Georgia. https://bearingarms.com/author/tomknighton/

https://bearingarms.com/tom-k/2020/02/14/numbers-hiding-waning-gun-control/