There are some fascinating results in this poll (my cached copy is here, H/T to Brennan from work). Keep in mind all of these results are post Newtown. I have selected the poll results I find the most interesting:
Q: Do you think tougher gun laws can help stop things like the Newtown school shooting, or do you think the people who commit these kinds of acts will always find the guns to commit violent acts?
A1: Tougher laws can help stop acts—22%
A2: People will always find guns—71%
A3: Laws help, but still find ways—5%
A4: Don’t know—1%Q: Would there be less violent crime in the United States if:
A1: Guns were banned—28%
A2: More law-abiding people had guns—58%
A3: Don’t know—15%Q: Does anyone in your household own a gun?
A1: Yes—52%
A2: Now—44%
A3: Don’t know/refused—5%Q: If the government passed a law to take your guns, would you give up your guns or defy the law and keep your guns?
A1: Give up—22%
A2: Defy law—65%
A3: Don’t know—13%
All of the numbers have profound implications but look at that last one.
65% say they would defy the law! And my guess is that a fair number of the people in the “Don’t know” category said something of the equivalent of “None of your business.”
Hmmm…. there are about 315 million people in the U.S. 52% (households, not people, but still…) have guns so that is about 150 million people with guns of whom 65%, ~100 million, say they would defy the law. As of 2006 there were about 800,000 police officers of all jurisdictions. That means that if all the police sided with the government they would still be outnumbered by about 125 to 1.
Don’t bury you guns. Tell them Molon labe!
The Denver Post has an editorial up asking very huffily who do those county sheriffs think they are suggesting they won’t enforce the upcoming gun laws?
Answer: The ones who will be expected to go out and collect them.
Those guys aren’t dumb.
I saw the same poll, and ended up pulling out a few other questions for a closer look.
A few things occurred to me while reading this post.
1) As early as age 14, in Boy Scout junior leader training, I learned that the fastest way to undermine your own authority was to give an order you knew would not be followed. I wonder what percentage of deputies/officers would follow such orders if their superiors gave them? I know a small sampling of men who grew up with me who now serve in one department or another but I can’t say with any certainty how they would react to a confiscation order.
2) I doubt that departments that *would* comply with a hypothetical collection order would do it solo or with small teams. Get a full company, close off a block (or a single building, etc), sweep, repeat. Unconstitutional? Of course. And the word would spread quickly, giving people not in the initial sweep a bit more time to hide their arms.
3) I have no idea where I would hide most of my guns in such a situation. I suppose I should give that some thought.
Or to set up defensive positions. That particular strategy would be extremely likely to prompt at least some people to start shooting – and I have my doubts about whether they would be wrong to do so in that situation.
One could conjecture that some significant fraction would “hide” their guns on their person, locked, loaded and in deep cover or concealment.
Funny how all the other Polls seem to be saying the exact Opposite, yet those are the ones that the Gun Grabbers always seem to Quote. Makes one wonder just who they are Polling, the Brady Campaign?
But it’s one thing to say “Molon Labe!,” it’s another when you are staring down a SWAT Team with your Wife and Kids Screaming and Crying in the Background.
So I’m guessing about 90% of the 65% will just stash their Guns in the Attic or the Crawl Space, and hope that their Kids and Neighbors won’t Squeal On them to the Stasi. But that still leave the 10% who WILL Shoot Back. And that will tell the Cops, the National Guard and the Federal Park Rangers who get Drafted to do the raids that they will only be facing 12-1 Odds against them.
Of course, the Fearless Comrades who Ordered this Nonsense in the First Place will be sitting in their Secure Buildings, surrounded by Heavy Weapons and Armor. But that’s for the End Game.
There are 315 million -people- in the United States, I’d guess there are about 260 million adults over 18 who actually “count” in terms of potentially gun owning voters. (Though older armed kids count for more than unarmed minors, only one group would play a part in civil disobedience.)
Control for convicted felons, including the existing prison population of 7-8 million and that drops below 250 million potentially eligible lawful gun owners. Control for cities and states where gun ownership is so onerous as to have negligible amounts of citizens exercising the right (NYC, Chicago, DC) and we’re down several more unarmed tens of millions who exist but are geographically irrelevent to any anti-gun actions (they aren’t going to leave the boroughs to interfere in what happens in upstate New York, much less Denver).
So that’s 65%, not out of 310 nationwide, but of the 200 million people that actually have skin in the game if push comes to shove, and based on my personal experience, most of the military and law enforcement in the -places- that matter are in that 65%.
But we know this White House can’t do math very well.
Assuming the poll was random from the population of all U.S. residents the 52% number already “corrects” for those who can’t legally own guns and people who live under repressive regimes.
Right. It corrects for the percentage eligible to own, but the resultant raw number corrected for those folks isn’t gonna be 150 million out of 315 because raw numbers-wise the 315 hasn’t also been corrected for an apples-to-apples.
If the eligible to own is <315, and the 52% is only of those eligible to own, then the true number who do own must be <150.
Or at least that's how the math seems to go. Not that I'm a statistician. I took the "C" in the pre-req and never looked back, there are programs to do chi-squares and such for us social science types. =)
“I have no idea where I would hide most of my guns in such a situation. I suppose I should give that some thought.”
I’d say that if it’s time to hide ’em, it’s time to use ’em.
Backups are a good idea, and you can only use so many at once. To quote Captain Reynolds, “[H]ow many weapons you plan on bringing? You only got the two arms.”