Survey: Dems much more likely to talk about their guns

 

A new poll reveals that Democrats are far more likely to be willing to talk about their guns than Republicans or independents.

The revelation comes just as the American Academy of Family Physicians is launching a campaign to emphasize just that – talking about guns. Specifically the doctors say they oppose any restrictions on their discussions about guns with their patients, and they want to take a “public health approach” on the issue of weapons.

The new poll from The O’Leary Report and WND, done by Zogby Analytics, reports that 68 percent of Democrats who responded said they would respond truthfully to a national pollster asking them personal questions about gun ownership.

For independents, only 49 percent would follow that path, and the GOP generated an even lower level of cooperation to such questions, with only 44 percent agreeing to respond to those questions.

The poll asked the question, “If a national pollster asked you if you owned a firearm, would you determine to tell him or her the truth or would you feel it was none of their business?”

Bradley S. O’Leary is president of The O’Leary Report and author of books including “Shut Up, America!,” “The Audacity of Deceit,” “America’s War on Christianity” and others.

The poll was conducted through online interviews between Jan. 16-18 of 890 likely voters in the U.S. Based on a confidence interval of 95 percent, the margin of error is plus or minus 3.4 percentage points.

Nationally, the poll revealed that 55 percent of respondents would talk with a pollster about such personal issues, while 36 percent would not. Nearly nine percent were uncertain.

Responses from men and women aligned closely with the national average, as did the pattern among the age groups and generations.

Among those who identified themselves with different ideologies is where the differences were stark. For those who self-identified as liberal, 75 percent said they would answer such questions, and only 18 percent thought it was private information.

For moderates, the split was 57 percent to 33 percent, and for conservatives more than half said they would refuse to reveal such information.

The physicians’ group, just this week, under the headline “Physician Free Speech,” announced a coalition effort involving a handful of professional organizations “in a call for policies to reduce firearm-related injuries and deaths in the United States and to protect physicians’ free speech rights to discuss gun ownership with patients.”

The campaign, which also involves the American Bar Association, the American Public Health Association and others, cites the incidence of gun deaths in the nation as a “public health crisis.”

The effort also seeks universal background checks, a ban on some weapons, more federal gun-injury research and other components, and says it does not conflict with the Second Amendment.

But it also likens the gun issue to the heavily regulated issues of motor vehicles, tobacco and hazardous materials and described it as a “public health crisis.”

The groups noted that “when public health research guides advocacy,” society is safer.

The issue with doctors’ conversations has included disputes when physicians make revealing such information mandatory, and patients refuse to comply.

More than 53 percent of those who called themselves “conservative on just about every issue” would tell a pollster with such a question “It was none of their business.” Only 15 percent of those who are liberal/progressive lined up in that column.

Regional, age, income and other factors didn’t have a significant impact on the answers to the question.

The poll also had asked whether respondents thought Hillary Clinton’s age – she would be 70 in her first year if elected – is a concern.

In fact, a plurality of Americans – even one in three Democrats – agrees that her age is a worry.

Overall, 46.5 percent of the respondents said the Democrats need to look at someone young. Only 33.4 percent said that was unneeded, and a significant one in five said they were not sure.

Among those ages 18-29, almost exactly half – 48.1 percent, said the Democrats needed to look at Hillary Clinton’s age as a factor. That was 46.8 percent for those ages 30-49 and 42.5 percent for those ages 50-64. For those over 65, it was 49.8 percent.

Another question in the survey was, “Do you agree or disagree that the United States should help certain Arab countries financially and militarily if their countries’ constitutions or laws make being a Christian or atheist a crime punishable by jail or even execution.”

The poll said nearly 63 percent of all respondents disagree with that funding.

Only about 16 percent said that should continue, while 62.6 percent disagreed. About 21 percent weren’t sure.

“According to the poll results Americans are more politically opposed to military and economic aid going to Arab countries that have religious bias,” said O’Leary.

Survey: Dems much more likely to talk about their guns
Bob Unruh
Sat, 28 Feb 2015 21:17:39 GMT