It’s not hard to see why conservatives, Second Amendment supporters, and gun owners distrust Democrats on this issue. Yes, there’s room for agreement on strengthening background checks on mental health, but Democrats don’t want just that. They need something else to satisfy their confiscatory ethos inherent in this issue. They want to destroy the Second Amendment. That’s not hyperbole. That’s becoming more fact-based as the Democratic Party has lurched to the far left in recent years.
The tragic shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida, which left seventeen people dead, has thrust gun control back into the limelight. CNN held a town hall on February 21 in Sunrise, Florida, where Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) and NRA spokesperson Dana Loesch descended into the lion’s den, facing a rabid anti-gun crowd in what was essentially an Orwellian two minutes of hate exercise against gun owners, conservatives, Republicans, and anyone else who didn’t agree with left wing gun politics. It was a kangaroo court—and we were all found guilty.
Now, YouGov has a poll showing that 82 percent of Democrats want to ban semiautomatic firearms, while they’re evenly split on a total handgun ban. This is where the party stands on gun rights, our civil right to own firearms. They want to shred the Second Amendment and the gauge of Democratic Party members offers a dark vision of what could come if enough of these people are elected to Congress. Allahpundit broke down the numbers:
YouGov asked people whether they favor or oppose banning semiautomatic weapons. Note: Not semiautomatic rifles, which some might incorrectly but understandably treat as a question about AR-15s or “assault weapons.” YouGov asked about semiautomatic weapons. That means handguns too. Result:
Overall Americans are at 55/33, with even Republicans at a surprisingly narrow 37/53 in opposition. YouGov should have followed up by asking people to define “semiautomatic” and presenting them with four possible definitions. I’d be curious to see what percentage answered correctly. Instead they followed up by asking how people feel about banning all handguns (except those issued to officers of the state, of course!), which would include revolvers. Result:
Americans are strongly opposed overall but Democrats are on the fence at 44/46. Which way will those numbers tilt in coming years, do you suppose, as the party drifts left and gives up on working-class white voters to chase an Obama-style coalition of young adults, minorities, and the highly educated?
Democrats are also evenly split at 39/41 on, uh, whether to repeal the Second Amendment.
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Here’s a possible silver lining: maybe the 55 percent figure would go down if people understood the terms. The media is terrible at basic gun knowledge. They think we can buy machine guns in the same fashion as we purchase milk at a grocery store. They think magazines impact the rate of fire; they don’t. They use terms like “assault weapon” and “full semi automatic,” which are meaningless. So, maybe once the media actually uses firearm lexicon properly, this support for a semiautomatic firearm ban could go down especially with a surge in independents now saying they’re strongly opposed to it. I note the shoddy gun knowledge aspect because if 82 percent of Democrats think all semiautomatics should be banned, then why do only 46 percent support a handgun ban? Could it be that they think semiautomatic weapons specifically concerns the AR-15? Handguns are semiautomatic as well. So, in all, almost the entire party wants to nix firearms in America, with an appallingly high proportion of them saying they want to repeal the Second Amendment outright.
New @CNN poll suggests that 57% of respondents support banning"rifles capable of semi-automatic fire, such as the AR-15."
— Lois Beckett (@loisbeckett) February 25, 2018
What percentage of respondents can accurately define what a "rifle capable of semi-automatic fire" is? We have no idea. https://t.co/9z5G0PKAXJ
My plea to pollsters, as a journalist covering gun politics: can you survey Americans on their understanding of what the basic terms of this debate mean?
— Lois Beckett (@loisbeckett) February 25, 2018
When different respondents say they want to ban "semi-automatic rifles," or that they support "universal background checks," what do they actually mean?
— Lois Beckett (@loisbeckett) February 25, 2018
Here’s the doom and gloom part: how can you work with a party in which the supermajority of its members support imposing a virtual ban on firearms? I mean it’s nice that we explicitly see where this party stands on Second Amendment rights. But when it comes to issues where bipartisan support can be found, like strengthening mental health provisions for better background checks, will Democrats support it, or drag their feet because they know if it passes—and most likely a bill like this will—then the legislative assault on gun rights will be over. We’ll have something on that later today. In short, the answer is yes—they will drag their feet, even block legislation by their own members. And people wonder why this place is a swamp.
I do think that because of the media disinformation, a lot of answers to these polls can be skewed. Yet, the 82 percent figure with Democrats is different. These people saw “support,” “ban,” and “gun” in the same sentence and said they wanted to ban guns. Okay—the word “semiautomatic” was used, but everyone knows in itself that’s a firearm. It’s hard to skew such a definitive statistic. The Democratic Party wants to impose Australian-style gun bans and execute confiscatory policies. That’s why it’s so hard to trust them. Yes, I know—it’s preaching to the choir to the readers of this site, but that poll revealed another layer on how this party has shifted on gun politics.
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