r/canadaguns • u/AutoModerator • Jun 13 '22

Weekly Politics Thread

Please post all your Politics or Ban-related ideas, initiatives, comments, suggestions, news articles, and recommendations in this thread. Unless new information is published in the media, recurring articles related to the gov'ts ***possible*** legislation are to be posted here. These threads will be weekly, until it's necessary for another per-week.

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u/[deleted] Jun 15 '22

Can someone smarter than I am explain to the class how a "majority of Canadians/gun owners support the freeze on handguns and the semi-auto ban, according to a new Leger poll that Poly is pushing?

'70% of gun owners

9 out of 10 Canadians

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u/Batsinvic888 Bats888 on YouTube Jun 15 '22 edited Jun 15 '22

The "gun owner" one is straight up useless. The sample size is so small it means nothing. I mean like seriously, if it was that high that would mean a significant amount of RPAL holders support a ban in their own guns.

The other one is absolutely nothing new. There is a reason I and many others have very little hope for the future of firearms in Canada long term. You could poke a hole in that survey because they said "assault rifle", but it's not out of line with what has been polled with different wording.

Polling Canada account posted these results too and also included Leger's US results. Gun laws should be... and support for [insert gun control]. I don't know what it says about the Canadian results, but the US results are all out of line with American polls. The background checks are in line with other surveys, but "assault weapons" ban support is at the high end ~65% and at the low end ~45%. "Buyback program" is also directly tied to the previous one and therefor is off. "Handgun ban" is waaaaaaaaay out of line. Gallup, a much more reputable American polling company, has handgun ban support at 19%.

Honestly, I don't think Leger is good at polling the US and while they're Canadian numbers are very high it's not out of line with previous polls.

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u/drain-angel BC Jun 15 '22 edited Jun 15 '22

Issues with Canadian polling (self-serving pre-selected demographic & engineered questions) and extremely questionable weighting (55+) and methodology aside, I still find it interesting that in both countries where attitudes towards gun control are inverse with age.

Look at the Boomers, GenX/Late Millennial, Zoomers in both countries. Perhaps there's hope in Canada if anything down the road.

Also this contradicts a StatsCan survey from 2017 and an Angus Reid poll from last month. Makes me question the Leger panel since they've been the most accurate with elections.

Edit : Apparently 60% of Tories (n=359) want handguns banned on page 28. Lmao this data is bunk.

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u/DistortoiseLP Jun 16 '22 edited Jun 16 '22

The Angus Reid poll doesn't contradict it very much:

As for the question of banning handguns completely in Canada, the Angus Reid Institute found significant support for a ban in both 2019 and 2020.

In their data, current gun owners only slightly edge out opposing it and everyone else supports it, including former owners. It otherwise presents a two to one support on almost every other issue, including federal crackdown over provincial solutions.

The only question they found contention in was:

Would you support this type of gun buyback program knowing it would be funded by taxpayers?

The people who oppose this cannot be assumed to be gun owning sympathizers if they'd be happier seeing the guns confiscated without compensation instead. This is not the same question as asking if they're opposed to the purpose of a buyback program to take guns. That said, I don't know how informative data before April 2020 is supposed to be about attitudes now. That 2020 one also shows:

Most past Conservative voters oppose a ban on handguns but support one on assault weapons.

And only opposed the handgun ban at 59% at the time. "Contradictions" in that data compared to now can very well reflect that a lot has happened since then and a lot of opinions changed fast with them.