Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Alternate questions.

A significant portion of the NORC firearms report is based off of leading questions authored by the Joyce Foundation. I propose these alternate questions for the NGPS Survey.

New NGPS Survey questions:

1. Do you think that mandatory gun-safety training should or should not be required for
anyone to buy a gun if that training is made readily accessible? If made difficult to obtain?

2. Would you favor or oppose a law which would a person to obtain police/government permission before being allowed to purchase a firearm?

3. Many localities are attempting to bankrupt and close firearm dealers through civil lawsuits. How strongly would you favor or oppose a law mandating all firearm sales to go through firearm dealers only? Favor or Oppose a law allowing non-licensed individual access to the background check system?

4. Knowing that registration offices have been closed down, preventing any further licenses, Do you favor or oppose the mandatory registration of handguns and pistols?

For each of the following statements, please tell me if you strongly agree, agree, disagree,
or strongly disagree?

1. The government should do everything it can to keep repeat violent offenders in prison, even if it means lengthening sentences or denying parole.

2. Engineers are now designing handguns equipped with devices which can recognize the
owner of a gun and not fire for anyone else. This technology has not been yet perfected and is opposed by police agencies for their service firearms. Please tell me if you would strongly favor, favor, oppose, or strongly oppose a law mandating these features on firearms for civilians?

3. Which of the following would you most favor to regulate the sale of handguns:
Check on a buyer's criminal record and have a five-day restriction on buying
a handgun.
Check on a buyer's criminal record instantly and restriction the five-day delay
on buying a handgun.
Neither check on a buyer's criminal record nor have a five-day restriction on
buying a handgun.

4. Do you favor or oppose requiring gun owners to prove to the authorities that they still own their revolvers or handguns on a yearly basis ?

5. Some states have passed laws limiting handgun sales to one per month per customer.
Some people favor these laws as a way to limit the number of firearms an individual can own. Other people oppose these laws as they have never been shown to reduce crime or trafficking. Do you strongly favor, favor, oppose, or strongly oppose a law that prohibits citizens from
buying more than one handgun per month?

6. Which of these views comes closer to your own? Legal restrictions on the sale and
ownership of handguns are too strict and should be relaxed/Existing restrictions on the
sale and ownership of handguns are sufficient now/There should be a total ban on handgun ownership/ Prohibited individuals should be punished more severely for illegal ownership of handguns and longarms .

7. Most states require a special license to allow people to carry a concealed firearm. Should
licenses to carry concealed firearms be issued to any adult who has passed a criminal
background check and a gun safety course or should they be required to prove they have a need for one to the police?

8. Which of these views comes closer to your own? Legal restrictions on the sale and
ownership of handguns are too strict and should be relaxed/Existing restrictions on the
sale and ownership of handguns are sufficient now/No new handguns should be
manufactured or imported, but current legal owners could keep their handguns./ Police should monitor restricted individuals more closely for criminal activity.

I'll do the GSS questions in a few days.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

(1) I'd like the GSS core questionnaire to ask about the number of gun owners in those households that own guns. My own estimate is somewhere in the range of 1.1-1.3, on average.

(2) The Joyce Foundation was able to fund a biased, supplementary GSS topical module on gun control by providing approx $40,000 to NORC. Then they used the general credibility of GSS results to promote their own agenda. What if gun owners (and manufacturers, policy groups, etc) copied this strategy and funded a more honest GSS module.