The only post I've seen in P&N that is more false than this one is the one where someone said you support the Constitution.
This country was built on Conservative/Libertarian values.
If conservatives used logic and rationality they wouldn't be conservatives. It is literally impossible to be both conservative and logical.
Is that why Democrats get in front of Congress and make teary eyed speeches that appeal to emotion rather than present facts?
The only post I've seen in P&N that is more false than this one is the one where someone said you support the Constitution.
What goal posts? None of the proposed gun laws were going to have any effect on previous, current, or future crime. None of them. Ever.
Good job denying the truth. I have always supported the Constitution and you oppose it.
No you support a twisted and corrupt view of the Constitution only when it suits your needs. It's been pointed out many times that you feel that freedom of religion should force Christianity onto this nation and obstruct free practice of Islam. And that's just one aspect of your delusion.
Really? I just provided a link that prevented potentially 150k crimes with the current law and you think an expansion of that law would make things worse?
Just stick to personal attacks, hyperbole, and logical fallacies because facts and logic aren't yiur strong suite.
For your first assessment. Just because something is statistically unlikely, doesn't mean it won't occur. Unlikely events happen all the time. The statistics showing Sandy Hook being the scene of a mass shooting event or even the Boston Marathon are MUCH lower of a chance of happening that Nate Silver predicting what 9 swing states would do. One of the things to learn about with statistics is that unless you have 100% or 0% probability, anything can and will happen.
I actually DID read the poll I am complaining about. But lets go over your link shall we and how I am going to trash that poll with it.
1) More respondents polled stated they are more democrat.
2) Of those respondents that stated they were unknown, independent, or didn't want to give their political affiliation, the majority of those responded stated they were democratic leaning or followed them more.
From those two shown above, we can tell that the same size was a bad sample. Larger polls on political affiliations and the populace as a whole across America show that there are more people that lean Republican or Conservative. That has been the case for a long time.
So when the majority of those polled state they are not in congruence with the population as a whole from larger polls with higher confidence levels, and multiple polls at that, then the poll being shown here is already suspect.
3) The majority of those polled lived in Urban or Suburban areas. The problem is how this question was asked. Many Americans do not know what exact classification of where they live counts.
Not to mention suburban-urban areas are typically homogeneous with regards to political affiliations. People of Chicago, or NYC are going to be far more democrat leaning that people of Houston or Dallas. Without stating the political affiliation of the areas involved, it makes the poll further suspect as to accuracy. When considering number 1 and number 2 points I just made, I'm willing to bet more calls were made to Chicago than Dallas for this poll.
4) Majority of responders to this poll admitted to not owning a gun. More Americans in red/rural areas typically have higher amounts of gun ownership. As we've seen from points 1 and 2, the majority of those responding were labeled democrat or leaning towards democrat party.
5) Is a real strange point. The poll presents "regions" it has respondents from. Majority being from the "South" as a label. Compared to Northest, Midwest, and West. The vast majority of gun owners from other polls show that gun ownership is heavily concentrated in the south. Which is also heavy concentrations of those that affiliate themselves with republican or conservative. So if more respondents to this poll are from the south, which other polls show to have heavier concentrations of conservatives/republicans and high levels of gun ownership, how did this poll get high levels of democrats that don't own guns as respondents?
6) Their weighting method was still NOT mentioned even in that link. Confidence level and error margin numbers are great, but without the weighting method used they are USELESS.
7) That link to their phone cold calling method of sampling doesn't tell you jack shit. Stating it's random means nothing. Especially when trying to capture a good representative sample. I mentioned this already.
Lol. Have you forgotten saying basically the same thing in 2010, 2011, and 2012? Has been being hilariously wrong over and over taught you anything?
Has your wallet forgotten you saying those things?
Biden is probably thinking "Why did I say that none of these laws would do much to help gun violence?"
I don't even know how to respond to that. I just told you the odds of that happening by chance are somewhere on the order of one in five hundred and your response is 'well anything can happen!'. That is simply not a valid counter-argument.
This is wrong for two reasons, one methodological and one factual. First, Democrats almost always enjoy a party affiliation advantage over Republicans, regardless of whether you count leaners or not. To say that the populace shows that there are generally more people who lean Republican is factually false. The only poll that I've known to show that was Rasmussen, and their accuracy over the last few elections has been extremely poor.
For more data on partisan ID over time look here:
http://www.gallup.com/poll/15370/party-affiliation.aspx
related: http://www.gallup.com/poll/159740/democrats-establish-lead-party-affiliation.aspx
and here:
http://www.people-press.org/2012/08/03/party-affiliation-and-election-polls/
If you look at these trends, the reported party affiliation actually lines up exceptionally well.
Perhaps more importantly however is that you are judging a polling outcome as opposed to an input, which is a HUGE statistical no-no. Basic stats failure there.
Of course the majority polled lived in urban or suburban areas. The majority of Americans live in urban or suburban areas. Considering that points #1 and #2 were factually wrong, your bet doesn't mean a lot. It is also irrelevant as their sample was randomly dialed.
Once again irrelevant due to a basic error in party ID. Furthermore, the rates of gun ownership also closely track with other surveys on the matter.
Article on the GSS showing gun ownership at 34%:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/03/10/us/rate-of-gun-ownership-is-down-survey-shows.html?hp
Gallup shows a modestly higher percentage, but the high refusal rate in this survey combined with the margin of error could easily account for that.
So no, it's not really showing significantly different levels of gun ownership either.
People frequently overestimate the partisanship of states.
Actually the weighting method is mentioned.
It's abundantly clear to me that you have no idea what you're talking about.
Your name isn't Dean Chambers is it? :hmm:
Goal posts moved right on cue.
Really? I just provided a link that prevented potentially 150k crimes with the current law and you think an expansion of that law would make things worse?
Just stick to personal attacks, hyperbole, and logical fallacies because facts and logic aren't your strong suite.
Actually it is. The point being that polls, statstics, and trends are not infalliable. That to base everything upon them, as you and others have consistently done in this thread as a basis for your political stance, is a BAD idea. I had been attempting to explain why and you still fail to understand.
Usually, more registered voters are democrat registered. Especially as of late. Especially considering the high volume of hispanic voters. That doesn't mean that the majority of Americans are democrats or even vote as such. Otherwise republicans would never get anywhere. As a fact, less and less registered republicans have been turning out to vote. That doesn't mean they aren't republicans, but that they aren't voting. The other thing with those Gallup polls, shows how WIDELY those polls in their party affiliations can swing. Some show more repubs. Some show more democrats. Again, sample size of something that small is not that great a representation.
I am judging polling income and not outcome. I am looking at HOW the poll was conducted. Also, a good scientist then looks as the results and double checks through various means how accurate those results are based upon the input. And then rechecks to make sure the gathering methods are valid based upon both input and output. I do the same thing as computer programmer. You constantly check both input, output, and gathering methods to verify how reliable the data set is. To do otherwise is a BIG NO NO.
Since you didn't prove anything wrong with my first two posts. As even the sampling of affiliations by the Gallup polls offered in your link show swings of high repubs or high demos (highest actually is usually independents) hasn't disproved any of my points. That a sampling size of 1,000 people isn't a sizable enough representation. Of which most of those polls do "weighting" by trying to call an equal amount of party affiliation. Which the GKP poll stated it tried to make calls by party affiliation, sex, age, and region. That results show that they didn't adhere to that weighting system well. But that isn't really "weighting" in terms of polling and statistics. Nor is that random as they are claiming it be for calling. It is a bit weight on random, but the results show they didn't stick to that.
Umm I said gun ownership was higher among conservatives than democrats. Those with guns typically favor gun rights over those without. How was my statement made inaccurate by this part of your post?
No the weighting of the data was never mentioned. The weighting of the "randomization" was made mentioned, but the outcome shows it wasn't followed well enough.
If the weighting of the randomization had been done correctly, we would see an equal representation of everything from party affiliation, sex, and regions. The only thing they made equal was sex as males and females were 50/50 representation in the poll.
The the input was skewed in regards to heavy urban/suburban areas with higher democratic party leanings, a weighting system would be used to apply the responses based upon a national scale. How those answers were "weighted" and assigned was never mentioned.
since I'm tired of those long ass quote backs.
Eski. As far as the poll position. Yes that is exactly what happened. People are decrying the fact that the legislation was shot down "despite" polls showing favorably that it should not have been. That polls showed that more people wanted universal background check. I was contending that going by polls like that shows how wrong it is.
If the poll in question was accurate, that more Americans favored the legislation than disfavored the legislation, then their democratically elected officials should have responded to that. That there would be an outpouring of Americans sending messages to their elected officials showing the support for the new bills and asking they be made into laws. That was NOT the case, nor the outcome.
Despite the outcome not being what the poll "predicted" for how the legislation would go down, others in this thread have constantly referred back to that poll as being right and can't believe it didn't predict the outcome we currently have. I was merely mentioning WHY that poll in question was not accurate. And that many polls referenced in relation to the Gun debate as of late have been skewed. And that because they can be skewed, and generally opinion polls end up being skewed by bad questions more often than anything else, that they can be poor indicators of political outcomes.
When the polls are simple in nature, neutral in questioning, and large enough of a sample size they are a bit more reliable and accurate as you have pointed out. That is not to say that even polling methods done well will work every time either.
That has been the entire point I've been trying to make and you seem to be sidetracking on.
The poll didn't predict anything, nor would anyone rationally use public opinion polls as a predictor of legislative outcomes as legislators are not bound by opinion polling. To say the poll was not accurate because the legislation failed is just baffling. They are in no way mutually exclusive.
The most logical reason for the disparate outcome is that the gun lobby is extremely powerful politically and has significant numbers of highly motivated members. What these polls do not gauge is differences in motivation. ie: even if only small percentages of Americans oppose background checks, perhaps a large percentage of those people will vote based on it. The supporters of background checks may not feel the same way and so a legislator can ignore their opinions more freely.
Lol, you flip flop a lot don't you? Weren't you just a few posts ago espousing on how accurate opinion polls are, especially at political outcomes? Speaking specifically to presidential elections.
If you can't maintain intellectual integrity in your debate you are a worthless shill here.
You are seriously clueless.
The only thing a poll proves in relation to congress is that congress doesn't represent the average person.
But but but the polls show....
But but but the American people want....