Interesting article on how the types of questions asked impact the results of surveys on attitudes toward concealed carry.
Weapons bill opposed by 69%
Bill sponsor calls new survey 'bogus'
By ALAN J. BORSUK
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Last Updated: Nov. 2, 2003
Wisconsin residents are opposed by a large margin to allowing people who legally own handguns to carry them in a concealed manner, a new poll says.
Concealed We
The Badger Poll, conducted by the University of Wisconsin Survey Center in Madison, found that among 511 Wisconsin residents selected randomly, 69% said they oppose a proposal "to allow people who can legally own handguns to carry concealed weapons in most public places."
The idea was favored by 27%. The remainder of the people said they didn't know or gave other responses.
A proposal to make carrying concealed weapons legal in Wisconsin was approved by the state Senate on Oct. 24 by a 24-8 margin, and is expected to be approved by the Assembly, perhaps as soon as this week. However, Gov. Jim Doyle has strongly indicated he will veto the bill, and the outcome of the issue is likely to ride on whether at least two-thirds of both the Senate and Assembly will vote to override his veto.
Backers of the "concealed carry" law said the survey results did not give a fair picture of support for the law because the questions did not fully portray what was in the law, particularly the requirement that anyone getting a permit first undergo training.
State Sen. Dave Zien (R-Chippewa Falls), the leading backer of the proposal, called the survey results "bogus" and "meaningless" if people responding didn't have a fuller idea of provisions of the law. He said a recent poll that included a question that mentioned training showed much stronger support.
But state Senate Minority Leader Jon Erpenbach (D-Middleton), a key opponent of the bill, said the poll results accurately show that the concealed weapons proposal is widely opposed across the state.
Erpenbach said many legislators who support the law are listening to the National Rifle Association, which he called "basically pretty loud and, in some cases, pretty threatening," in political terms, while their constituents are actually opposed to permitting concealed weapons.
Pollster says it's accurate
G. Donald Ferree Jr., who directs the Badger Poll, said he regarded the results as "a very good reading, a very accurate reading," of sentiment in Wisconsin related to the concealed weapons law because a variety of questions in the poll came at the subject in several ways and provided a "nuanced" and full view of what people thought.
For example, in one question in the poll, 51% of people said they would be somewhat or much less likely to vote for the re-election of someone who voted "to allow ordinary residents to carry concealed weapons," while 12% said they would be somewhat or much more likely to vote in favor of such a candidate.
Zien and Darren LaSorte, the NRA's legislative liaison for Wisconsin, both pointed to a poll conducted several weeks ago by the Wisconsin Council on Children and Families as supporting their view of the importance of such elements as required training in finding out people's valid opinions.
In that poll, when people were asked "in general, do you favor or oppose a law in Wisconsin that would allow citizens of Wisconsin to carry concealed weapons," 62.5% were opposed and 30.5% in favor.
But results changed on a follow-up question: "Do you favor or oppose allowing citizens to carry concealed guns if they pass a course in firearms safety and obtain a license from the county sheriff's department?" On that question, 49% were in favor, 46% opposed.
Zien called the training requirement in the weapons bill "the big, big caveat in this law" and said he believed that, with that in, as many as 70% or 80% of people in Wisconsin supported the idea.
No question in the Badger Poll referred to the training requirement, but Ferree said he was confident the overall pattern of responses showed there were "rather clear reservations" about allowing concealed weapons. He said he doubted adding one or two additional elements to the questions would have changed that.
Erpenbach said that even supporters actually know that most people in the state oppose the proposal.
"The politics of this is very clear. We have a very loud minority of people in the state who want concealed carry," while the majority oppose it, Erpenbach said.
The NRA's LaSorte dismissed Erpenbach's criticism, noting that six out of 15 Democrats in the Senate voted in favor of the proposal.
The Badger Poll found support for the "concealed carry" proposal higher among men (38%) than among women (16%), among Republicans (35%) than among Democrats (20%), and among people under 30 (38%) than in any other age group, with support among people 60 and over at 19%.
But in no case did it hit 40%.
Ferree said that, overall, people seemed to be saying in the poll that they saw some uses for guns and favored continuing to allow guns to be used for hunting purposes but were reluctant to expand permitted uses of guns and had qualms about some existing practices.
State Sen. Scott Fitzgerald (R-Juneau), who supports the bill, said he thinks the Badger Poll results are accurate in terms of what most people in the state knew about the proposed law.
But, like Zien, he contended that if people know the full details of what was in the proposal, support would be higher than the new poll indicated.
"The public, I think, certainly has not been educated" on the bill, Fitzgerald said.
The poll results are based on telephone interviews with 511 people across the state, conducted Oct. 21 to 28. The margin of error in questions involving the full sample is plus or minus 4 percentage points.
Original URL: http://www.jsonline.com/news/state/nov03/182161.asp
From the Nov. 3, 2003 editions of the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
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