“There are numerous efforts underway with an outside strategy, that is going to help capture this energy so it becomes more uncomfortable for Republicans not to move something,” an aide to a pro-gun-control lawmaker told MSNBC.com Monday, “citing high levels of public support for individual gun-control measures.”
President Barack Obama tapped Vice President Joe Biden -- whom Examiner reported has yet to "accomplish anything relevant" regarding gun control -- to lead a new task force on gun control. However, one of the members of Biden's task force -- President of the National Association of Police Officers and Boston Police Officer Thomas Nee -- has a lot of experience in the field.
Nee's son Joseph was convicted in 2008 for planning a mass murder of students and teachers at Marshfield High School in Massachusetts.
Still, in the wake of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School, gun control activists seem convinced that they can use this tragedy to tip the scales in their favor.
However, during Monday's heated debate on CNN, Alex Jones of Info Wars offered a bit of angry advice to Piers Morgan -- the British citizen who is the subject of a White House petition, signed by over 105,000 people seeking his deportation -- regarding his effort to use the Sandy Hook shooting as an excuse to attack on American's Second Amendment rights.
Do you understand, you're not going to pull on America's heart strings. They know your script. You're not going to get our guns.
Of course, Morgan isn't the only anti-gun activist trying to exploit the tragedy to strip law-abiding citizens of "the right of the people to keep and bear arms."
"As news of the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary played out around the country,” Kurt Eichenwald wrote for Vanity Fair, “the mantra from the gun-rights folks was fairly consistent: now is not the time to discuss how the government should deal with controls on firearms.”
It’s politicizing tragedy to talk about it, they whine.
Eichenwald also wants to "repeal the Second Amendment."
Then again -- while “Vanity Fair is a magazine of pop culture, fashion, and current affairs published by Condé Nast,” that boasts itself as being “a cultural catalyst that drives” rather than reflects “the popular dialogue globally” -- this self-righteous chatter is the “fairly consistent” denial response used by anti-gun-rights folks to distract everyone else from the “uncomfortable” reality that their effort in “politicizing tragedy” to push their personal agenda is failing.
The details of recent polling data proves it.
The link chosen by MSNBC takes you to an article by CBS, which claims "support for stricter gun control" has reached a "10-year high." But the article only discusses the results from its Dec. 19-22 survey that supports the argument.
In fact, responses to similar questions in a collection of surveys gathered by Polling Report -- including the one by CBS -- completely contradict the claim that "high levels of public support for individual gun-control measures" in America.
The devil is always in the details.
While 58 percent in the Dec. 19-22 USA Today/Gallup Poll did say they “feel that the laws covering the sale of firearms should be made more strict,” 74 percent oppose laws to ban hand guns. Only 24 percent expressed support of laws to ban hand guns.
A Dec. 14-16 poll by ABC showed similar results. While the majority favor “stricter gun laws – 54 percent to 43 percent – The vast majority -- 71 percent to 27 percent – oppose laws to ban hand guns.
Where 49 percent of respondents in the Dec. 17-19 Pew Research Center survey said they believe it’s more important “to control gun ownership" -- as opposed to 42 percent who said it’s more important “to protect the right of Americans to own guns -- 67 percent oppose a ban on hand guns. Only 28 percent supported the measure.
While the Dec. 17-18 CNN/ORC Poll also showed 71 percent favored “some restrictions,” only 17 percent said “all guns should be illegal for everyone except police and authorized personnel."
The CNN poll also reflected that those “restrictions” were limited to “preventing certain people, such as convicted felons or people with mental problems, from owning guns” and “requiring gun owners to register their guns with the local government. The majority are also opposed to new “restrictions” aimed at “limiting the number of guns an individual can own.”
Where the Dec. 14-16 CBS News Poll showed 26 percent believed “stricter gun control laws would have done a lot to prevent the violence that occurred at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut,” 50 percent said stricter gun laws would have had “no effect.”
Where 46 percent of respondents in CNN's poll said “government and society can take action that will be effective in preventing shootings like the one in Connecticut from happening again,” 53 percent said “shootings like the one in Connecticut will happen again regardless of what action is taken by government and society."
Where the Dec. 17-19 Pew survey showed 44 percent thought the Newtown shooting “reflects broader problems in American society,” 47 percent said they believe “things like this” are “just the isolated acts of troubled individuals."
That’s a complete flip in sentiments reflected in the Dec. 14-16 Pew Research poll regarding the same question.
Pew’s survey also showed that the majority – 48 percent -- believe “that gun ownership in this country does more to protect people from becoming victims of crime. Just 37 percent say gun ownership does “more to put people's safety at risk."
A 2012 case study released by the Cato Institute – “Tough Targets” -- cited thousands upon thousands of violent crimes that were prevented by legal gun owners from 2004 to 2011.
“When a mass-shooting takes place,” Christopher Cook of Western Free Press noted Saturday, “it gets wall-to-wall coverage” by “the gun-control-supporting media.” But “when a mass shooting in-the-making is stopped by a law-abiding citizen with a gun” that same media ignores the story because “it doesn’t fit the agenda.”
Case and point, The Tampa Bay Times reported Saturday that 25-year-old Daniel Quinnell was “shouting racial epithets” as he approached 24-year old Cameron Mohammed and his girlfriend from behind in a Lutz, Fla. Walmart parking lot.
Even as Quinnell shot Mohammed 20 times at point blank range, Mohanned -- a carry conceal license holder who had a 45-caliber Taurus pistol in his holster -- never drew his weapon because he knew his attacker only had “a pellet gun.”
I don't know. I just couldn't do it," Mohammed said, recovering at his Tampa home two days after the attack. "I couldn't blow this guy away for something he could change later in life. I'm not going to decide this man's fate.
It doesn’t fit the narrative that guns are always bad,” Cook wrote further, “and cannot be used by good people to defend others.
Mohammed didn’t even draw his gun to defend himself, and the mainstream media ignored the story or his extraordinary restraint as a gun owner.
Apparently, “the gun-control-supporting media” also ignores the details in gun control surveys that don't "fit the agenda” as well.
Where 65 percent in Pews’s survey said “allowing citizens to own assault weapons makes the country more dangerous,” the majority – 49 percent to 44 percent -- are still opposed to any proposals “banning semi-automatic guns.”
The USA Today survey also showed that the majority – 51 percent to 44 percent -- opposed banning automatic weapons.
The poll by ABC -- by a margin of 52 percent to 44 percent -- was the only survey that showed support for banning semi-automatic weapons.
In fact, the only measures consistently supported by the majority of Americans in these polls are proposals to establish new laws “which would require background checks before people -- including gun dealers” to “buy guns at gun shows” and “ law which would ban the sale and possession of high-capacity ammunition clips that can contain more than 10 bullets."
“One key to attracting support from at least some Republicans and NRA-backed Democrats, gun-control supporters say,” MSNBC reported, “will be striking while the iron is hot, and while memories of Newtown remain fresh.”
A Dec. 27 Gallup poll showed the majority of Americans -- 54 percent to 38 percent – “have a favorable opinion of the National Rifle Association.” That’s + 16 percent.
Monday, the Real Clear Politics average showed that, while fewer Americans -- 53.1 percent -- approved of Obama’s job performance and more -- 42.2 percent -- disapproved. That’s +10.9 percent.
The RCP average showed that -- while 18 percent approve of the collective job performance of the members of Congress – 75.4 percent disapprove. That’s a negative of 57.4 percent.
As for the effort of anti-gun activists trying to “strike while the iron’s hot” and use the pain of Newtown as an excuse to strip Americans of their guns -- polling details show that the conviction among grieving Americans to defend their Second Amendment rights is apparently still as "hot" as the day the measure was ratified on Dec. 15, 1791 -- nearly 221 years ago to the day of the shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School.
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