Monday, May 22, 2006

Polling on the gun registry

Having escaped from gun happy Florida unscathed, after a day back in the T-Dot I'm back on the road, this time in rainy overcast Seattle. Add in the mountains and it feels just like home.

Interesting polling results from Ipsos today on support for the gun registry, in the wake of the AG’s report last week and Constable Stock's plan to scrap it if necessary but not necessarily scrap it.


In a nutshell, most of the country says scrap the long gun registry, but keep the handguns registered. The exceptions: Ontario and Quebec. When you factor those two population heavy provinces, overall, country is split.


Unsurprising, really, as I suspect if the results were to be broken down even further it would again be shown to be an urban/rural divide.


There’s some interesting figures. For example, some 48 per cent want to maintain a handgun registry but support killing the long gun registry, while 47 per cent said keep them both. An earlier Ipsos study that didn’t separate handguns from long guns showed 67 per cent didn’t want the gun registry scrapped; that really underscores the difference in opinion on handguns vs. long guns.


I don’t think there’s any way you can call 48 per cent of Canadians gun nuts. They’re not. They support the handgun registry; they just don’t see why long guns should be included. The gun nuts are those that say kill the handgun registry too (I didn’t see any stats on that). There won’t be any pleasing them, it’s like religion for them. From my cold dead hands, and what not.



Ont., Que. out of sync on gun registry, new poll finds
Carly Weeks, CanWest News Service
Published: Monday, May 22, 2006

OTTAWA -- More than half of Canadians in Western and Atlantic provinces support the Conservative government's intention to scrap the long-gun registry, while more than 50 per cent of people in Ontario and Quebec want the registry to remain intact, a new poll shows.
(more)

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4 comments:

Jeff said...

The gun registry sure had an impact in Toronto didn't it?

You can do lots of stuff with statistics. Your statistics don't prove much of anything.

Personally, I think the Florida decrease is because of global warming. And the increase in stormy weather/hurricanes. It's just too humid and windy to commit violent crime.

Robert said...

I still find it strange that so many people who never raise a fuss over renewing the registration for their car can complain so much about registering a firearm.

Truth is the only reason this is an issue is because the Conservatives found it to be a convenient and effective wedge.

Jeff said...

If statistics don't mean a thing to you why would you make a comment that insinuates that Florida is rife with people killing people with guns

I said they were gun happy, as in there were many guns, and they were happy with them. That's based on their gun friendly laws, and the fact that when I was in Orlando I couldn't go 20 feet outdoors without seeing a trooper.

Mike said...

Hmm, Ontario and Quebec have 65% of Canada's population.

Now tell me who is out of synch with whom?

"And Robert, using your logic we should register all the knives in our drawers. "

There is a Conservative backbencher from Brockville trying to do just that. Ironic eh?