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Gun Regulation Survey Results

VikingsGuy

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As of 10am Sunday, we had 54 Hunttalkers take the 31 question survey. Thanks to all who took the time to work through a very long list of questions. At the bottom are the results. Just a few observations/assumptions before we get to the numbers

  • If I couldn't clearly decern your answer it got entered as N/A and was not included in the final math.
  • I assume that this audience is not "typical", rather we have more than average experience with guns, use guns more routinely than average, are not "afraid" of guns, and will be effected by any new regulations more than the average person.
  • Two questions resulted in unanimous "NOs" - Banning online firearms sales and Banning loaning of firearms to friends/family while hunting or at the range. Interestinly, both of these are quite commonly banned in the "common-sense gun control" bills I have read.
  • No new gun control provision gathered a majority let alone a "filibuster-proof" (60%) majority.
  • There was high support for maintaining current limits on automatic weapons, ineligible persons, FFL background checks, and sensitive location limitations (such as airports, courts, etc).
  • I was surprised almost 20% felt the government should not be allowed to limit access to handgrenades, rocket launchers, tanks or Apache helicopters. I did not see this one coming.
  • Two "pro-gun owner" changes to the current law that got very strong support were pulling suppressors out of the NFA (93%) and getting to some type of 50 state carry regime (83%).
  • Allowing open carry of semi-auto rifles in common public areas like streets/parks was a 50-50 split, as was bump stocks and 80% lowers.
  • A lot of "common sense" gun controls really got slapped, including gun registries, online sales bans, magazine size, AR bans, changing the minimum age, max per month purchases, "smart guns lockouts", and others.

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  • There was high support for maintaining current limits on automatic weapons, illelligible persons, FFL background checks, and sensitive location limitations (such as airports, courts, etc).
Scary, my wife says I can be hard to read sometimes...
  • I was surprised almost 20% felt the government should be allowed to limit access to handgrenades, rocket launchers, tanks or Apache helicopters. I did not see this one coming.
Did you mean should NOT be allowed?
 
A lot of work went into this

I will use this in our local conversation

I was in the minority on a couple, which could be argued either way, but the one that does bother me a bit is number 7.

I was in the minority on Number seven and either I dont understand the question, or all the other folks that responded have perfect families, the other families that they know are perfect and I guess are assuming that all the crazies out there committing violent crimes dont have families .

Thank you for all the work that went into doing this
 
A lot of work went into this

I will use this in our local conversation

I was in the minority on a couple, which could be argued either way, but the one that does bother me a bit is number 7.

I was in the minority on Number seven and either I dont understand the question, or all the other folks that responded have perfect families, the other families that they know are perfect and I guess are assuming that all the crazies out there committing violent crimes dont have families .

Thank you for all the work that went into doing this
My thought on 7 was that if a family member was a felon or unstable in someway I would know it... what was your thinking?
 
I wonder how may people understand online gun sales are still subject to NICS background checks, and using an FFL for the transfer? My guess is not many do.
I have an FFL and 95% of my business in transferring online purchases. ( Gunbroker, Budsguns, etc.)

Honestly, I would rather do a transfer rather than purchasing the firearm and then reselling to the buyer. I will steer people in the direction of buying the firearm themselves and just using me for the transfer.
 
A lot of work went into this

I was in the minority on Number seven and either I dont understand the question, or all the other folks that responded have perfect families, the other families that they know are perfect and I guess are assuming that all the crazies out there committing violent crimes dont have families.

I think the working assumption is that we know who those crazies are and wouldn’t sell to them. I have several cousins I wouldn’t sell a gun to under any legal framework.
 
My thought on 7 was that if a family member was a felon or unstable in someway I would know it... what was your thinking?
You are correct and that is an excellent point. I think I was thinking perhaps further outside the box. Grandparents leave firearms to their children and their children might hand them to people in the family that they dont know that much about

"oh my son ( or daughter ) loves guns and/or hunting"--which could be a niece or nephew they dont really know

For the record I have been accused locally of overthinking this one,

One more point. My grandparents complain about government being into everything and knowing everything about everyone. So they tell me it is not governments business who they give their guns to and that they are not going to give or sell a gun to a crazy person. My generation has never not known a time where everything was not in a government computer somewhere

thank you for asking
 
You are correct and that is an excellent point. I think I was thinking perhaps further outside the box. Grandparents leave firearms to their children and their children might hand them to people in the family that they dont know that much about

"oh my son ( or daughter ) loves guns and/or hunting"--which could be a niece or nephew they dont really know

For the record I have been accused locally of overthinking this one,

One more point. My grandparents complain about government being into everything and knowing everything about everyone. So they tell me it is not governments business who they give their guns to and that they are not going to give or sell a gun to a crazy person. My generation has never not known a time where everything was not in a government computer somewhere

thank you for asking
Good points.

I can definitely folks becoming increasingly less worried about, “the government knowing”.
 
A lot of work went into this

I will use this in our local conversation

I was in the minority on a couple, which could be argued either way, but the one that does bother me a bit is number 7.

I was in the minority on Number seven and either I dont understand the question, or all the other folks that responded have perfect families, the other families that they know are perfect and I guess are assuming that all the crazies out there committing violent crimes dont have families .

Thank you for all the work that went into doing this
Lets just say my grandpa passed away and owned 20 guns and left them to me. I shouldn’t have to go do a 4473 on every gun and pay a transfer fee on every gun which at a minimum would be at least $400 a lot of places around here are $50-$75 a transfer. But I don’t agree with background checks on private sales either. If a buddy and I want to do a trade on some rifles I shouldn’t have to go pay another fee to do it
 
Great work. None of it surprises me much. The point you made is very valid in that we have to keep in mind is that HT is a fairly monolithic subset- mostly white, mostly male, probably not in an urban area, etc. there are some exceptions to every category, but I would never call the group “diversified”. The demographic group is probably least likely to be a victim of gun violence. I also realized from the other thread that what state you live in and the local regulations might skew some of the answers. I’m not sure I would argue that too hard because most answers are just anti regulation, but giving the benefit of the doubt in some cases.
 
Great work. None of it surprises me much. The point you made is very valid in that we have to keep in mind is that HT is a fairly monolithic subset- mostly white, mostly male, probably not in an urban area, etc. there are some exceptions to every category, but I would never call the group “diversified”. The demographic group is probably least likely to be a victim of gun violence. I also realized from the other thread that what state you live in and the local regulations might skew some of the answers. I’m not sure I would argue that too hard because most answers are just anti regulation, but giving the benefit of the doubt in some cases.
We found this to be true when we did a very small ( compared to this one ) survey. We found males to fall in line with the results of the survey at approx 95%, but females were more 50/50. We also found folks form Texas and Alaska to be more conservative and desired less regulations than those from California and Florida. However we found regardless of location or gender, older folks wanted less regulations and younger folks were less concerned about regulations.

For the record my grandfather after looking at it said. "more proof the younger generation is going hell in a hand basket ";)

Lets just say my grandpa passed away and owned 20 guns and left them to me. I shouldn’t have to go do a 4473 on every gun and pay a transfer fee on every gun which at a minimum would be at least $400 a lot of places around here are $50-$75 a transfer. But I don’t agree with background checks on private sales either. If a buddy and I want to do a trade on some rifles I shouldn’t have to go pay another fee to do it
no argument sir. You point is a good one . However I didn't and dont include the financial part of all this into my thinking, only the desire to do my part, or try to , to keep firearms away from those who should not have them, for their safety and others ,

But remember what my grandfather said about my way of analyzing this issue :)
 

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