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It's a survey done by academics. It's not propaganda.There IS propaganda.
Again, no one operates polls that way. No one. Your demand is unreasonable.1) We know it doesn't poll the estimated 45-70 million owners.
Studies like this do typically report the demographic makeup of the respondents. With something like this, they will almost certainly try to get a representative sample of the nation as a whole.2) So they asked people "do you own a gun? How many?" And we don't know who these people are, where they are from, the reason they felt they needed to participate? Their make up?
Yes.3) Not wanting to participate in a survey takes a variety of reasons. But if you aren't willing to reveal personal information to random people...people you don't know...that makes you paranoid?
I participate in surveys.I never tell people I don't know about my guns, my money, my sexual history, who I am related to, etc ad Nauseum (in no particular order). Do you make it a habit?
Yes, they do. What they do is contact people across the United States, put together a representative sample of the nation as a whole, and ask them.4) Correct. It wasn't a government survey. My point (and the biggest point I am making) is that they have NO accurate way to determine how many gun owners exist.
Yes, it doesThese "polling samples" don't account for the MILLIONS of owners, the people who inherit firearms
Yes, it doeswho are gifted firearms
Yes, it doespeople who purchase them from friends
It's a survey. They are basically asking people "do you own a gun? If so, how many? Does someone else in your home own a gun?" So yes, they do account for the variety of ways people wind up owning guns.and the fact that they don't even track the purchasing of firearms.
IrrelevantAnd then you consider gun stores that have gun out of business?
Also irrelevantTrades to pawn shops?
The survey is fine. The problem is that you don't like its results.The survey is a joke because it can't factor all that in.
Except it isn't. Polls are not perfect, but they are getting better, as we figure out ways to improve response rates.This isn't me just being pro gun. This is me staring that the art of survey taking is pretty much a joke now.
We should also note that in the absence of polls, you basically have absolutely no data to prove otherwise. E.g. if you happen to live in a rural county in Texas, chances are that most of your neighbors own multiple guns, and it's perfectly normal. Inferring that "gun ownership must be high" is deeply flawed, because you don't have access to a representative sample, and can easily ignore how gun ownership rates are very low in cities like Boston or San Francisco.
I.e. if you toss out all surveys, then you basically have nothing to go on, no way to make any claims, no way to counter it. Sounds like a Pyrrhic victory to me.