dagblog - Comments for "In Gun Ownership Statistics, Partisan Divide Is Sharp"

poles, they usually require

artappraiser — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 17:09:53 +0000

In reply to Americans are evenly divided

poles, they usually require simplistic answers to poorly framed questions, therefore being of no value except in simplistic cases such who the responder will vote for after all is said and done

Good to note and I certainly agree. Pew definitely is in the business of trying to figure out the culture with polls, very tricky, and their reports should be take with liberal helpings of salt

BTW, I just ran across a interesting and more sophisticated answer to the main question by a UK expert on the topic:

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2012/12/17/guns-mass-killings-w...

Of course, this aids the Obama admin's talking points of "it's complicated," and that's not what many people want to hear right now.

Americans are evenly divided

LULU — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 16:21:58 +0000

In reply to Public Divided over What

Americans are evenly divided over whether the Newtown shootings reflect broader problems in society or are just isolated acts of troubled individuals.

Are they really divided in anywhere near this precise way? I am curious as to how regulars here would answer that survey in case any would like to say. I would answer, if those two answers were my only choice, that the recent shooting was an isolated act of a troubled individual. But that would hardly reflect my total judgment. I also believe that "broader problems in society" likely contributed to the troubled individual's troubles and to his maniacal way of reacting to them. It is not a case of one or the other. That is why, as a rule, I normally refuse to respond to poles, they usually require simplistic answers to poorly framed questions, therefore being of no value except in simplistic cases such who the responder will vote for after all is said and done. "Who" can be answered precisely. "Why" is a lot more complicated. How to change someone's response may have many answers but often none.

Public Divided over What

artappraiser — Tue, 18 Dec 2012 14:58:38 +0000

In reply to In Gun Ownership Statistics, Partisan Divide Is Sharp

Public Divided over What Newtown Signifies

Pew Research Center, Dec. 17, 2012

Americans are evenly divided over whether the Newtown shootings reflect broader problems in society or are just isolated acts of troubled individuals.

Overview

The shootings at an elementary school in Newtown, Conn. on Friday have drawn widespread public interest. A weekend survey finds that 57% of Americans say they followed news about the tragedy there very closely. That is higher than interest in the shootings at an Aurora, Colo. movie theater in July (49% very closely), though not as great as interest in the Columbine shootings in 1999 (68%).

The survey by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, conducted Dec. 14-16 among 746 adults, finds the public is evenly divided over whether the Newtown shootings reflect broader problems in Americans society (47%) or are just the acts of troubled individuals (44%).

By contrast, clear majorities said that both the Aurora shootings, as well as the shootings in Tucson, Ariz. in Jan. 2011, were just the isolated acts of troubled individuals [....]