Firearms Owners Against Crime
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Institute for Legal, Legislative and Educational Action
Arizona -(Ammoland.com)- From 5 December 2019 to 8 December 2019, Zogby Analytics ran an online poll of 443 likely Democrat primary voters. Of those voters, 36% approved of confiscation of legally owned firearms from American Citizens who have not committed a crime. These are the Americans who really do want to take your guns.
There were 20.4 million Democrat primary voters in 2018, the highest number in two decades.
36% of 20.4 million is 7.34 million voters who want to confiscate firearms from Americans who have not committed a crime.
This contrasts with about 18 million voters who have firearms carry permits and roughly 100 million voters who own guns.
According to Zogby's poll 38-39% of Democrat likely primary voters, or about 7.75-7.96 million voters, want government-paid healthcare for illegal immigrants. The same number want to decriminalize the crossing of the U.S. border without permission. About the same number want to eliminate the private healthcare system in the United States.
Zogby Analytics did not report how much overlap existed between the groups who positively answered the gun confiscation, immigration, and healthcare questions. It seems likely there is considerable overlap. Positive answers to the questions indicate a lack of concern for the rule of law and property rights.
Zogby's poll of likely Democrat primary voters was conducted online, but it was not random or open to everyone. Zogby carefully selected the online pool to represent the Democrat primary voters demographically.
There may be others who support gun confiscation, effective elimination of the border, free healthcare for anyone who crosses the border, and elimination of the private healthcare system in the United States. It seems unlikely many of them exist outside of the Democrat party. Those outside the Democrat party are unlikely to be effective politically.
It appears the ideological opposition to the Second Amendment numbers about eight million voting Americans. Their number is magnified by a few billionaires and the legacy media, who are overwhelmingly anti-Second Amendment.
Second Amendment supporters are more difficult to measure. Many people say they support the Second Amendment… “but”.
Analysis of referendums and online polls over the last 40 years has led me to believe there are about five times as many committed Second Amendment supporters as there are committed opponents of the Second Amendment.
There are about five million members of the National Rifle Association, and another million or so members of other Second Amendment groups such as Gun Owners of America, the Second Amendment Foundation, Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership, and various state groups. Some of those memberships overlap.
Opposition organizations, (who often claim they support the Second Amendment while doing everything they can to prevent people from owning and carrying arms), have much smaller memberships. Formal memberships in Everytown for Gun Safety, The Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, The Coalition to Stop Gun Violence, Giffords, and the Violence Policy Center are not easy to measure. They are all relatively small organizations.
Everytown claims “Nearly 6 million have joined the movement”, but those are not dues-paying members. They are simply the number of email addresses of “supporters”. People who give actual money to the group are about 100,000. The group spent about $68 million in 2018.
The NRA spent about $10 million on lobbying in 2018, which was considerably lower than usual. The two numbers are not directly comparable, as the NRA has a much larger staff, and spends a great deal on programs that are not political.
Second Amendment supporters have strength in numbers and commitment. Those who wish to disarm the United States population have far fewer numbers, but billionaires and the legacy media on their side.
As the ideological split in the country intensifies, more people on both sides are likely to invest in arms and ammunition.
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 retired from the Department of Defense after a 30-year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.