USA Today's misleading graphic

G

GnL

New member
In the Snapshot graphic at http://www.usatoday.com the caption says "The number of American households with guns has sharply and steadily declined." The data they selected for use in this graphic is out of date (Gallup data via Sourcebook for Criminal Justice Statistics):

USA Today graphic:
nsnap165.jpg


Most up to date Gallup Poll Data:
home.gif


Suddenly it doesn't seem to be "sharply and steadily" declining now, does it? More erroneous data manipulation by the media.

Feel free to send them feedback on this at http://survey.usatoday.com/cgi-bin/feedbackselect2.cgi?news&newsfb@usatoday.com

I did.
 
I would assume that their data is underrepresented in any case. Any decline is just as likely to be people unwilling to tell a strange that they had firearms in their house. I know I would not tell anything about my personal possessions to people like that any more.
 
Sent them an e-mail.

Herodotus is correct. I would not tell a perfect stranger calling me from out of the blue that I owned anything. How do I know if this is not some punk burglar having me case the joint for them? The results of the Gallup poll or any other source, including the government, have got to be seriously skewed.

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Gun Control: The proposition that a woman found dead in an alley, raped and strangled with her own panty hose, is more acceptable than allowing that same woman to defend herself with a firearm.
 
Looking at the graph, I can no more logically justify the claimed steep decline in gun ownership before 1999 than I can the steep increase after 1999.

What would that be a swing of 400,000 guns one way and then a swing of 400,000 guns the other way from all those families with guns being turned into families with no guns and back to families with guns? Why?

Not likely,

Rick

Rick
 
Here's the complete data going back further in time with the percentage of people answering "yes" to this question: "Do you have a gun in your home?"

1959: 49%
1965: 48
1968: 50
1972: 43
1975: 44
1980: 45
1983: 40
1985: 44
1989: 47
1990: 47
1991: 46
3/1993: 48
10/1993: 51
7/1996: 38
11/96: 44
1997: 42
2/1999: 36
4/1999: 34
4/2000: 42

Obviously there is quite a bit of scatter so analyzing year to year drops/increases is probably not that meaningful. The point of my post, however, was that USA Today was attempting to depict a trend using data that was selected and not current. Even if there is a slight decrease in the past 7 years it should not be one characterized as sharp and steady.

Just averaging out the percentages above gives about 44% which is not that far from the most recent data.

I guess the part that is intriguing to me (assuming that there has been a slight decline in percentage) is that this seems to fly in the face of overall gun numbers. Look at a chart of how absolute numbers have been increasing. Granted the population as a whole is increasing (hence the overall number of households is also increasing) but is it possible that the two numbers could diverge so dramatically? Where are all the guns going? Are people that already own guns just buying more? I'd be interested to hear opinions on this.
 
I suppose what I find most humorous is to contrast this with the mantra 'there are just toooooo many guns ...'. Really? Well, make up your mind. Are there more guns in our homes, or less? Too many guns, or not enough?

Rather like the interesting dichotomy between the FBI's stat's showing violent crime at its lowest rate in 30 years (last Fall, as I recall), versus the 'epidemic of gun violence' mantra we hear in the mainstream media. Kind of hard to have an 'epidemic' if violence has been steadily decreasing, no? Wouldn't the Surgeon General look like an idiot if he / she claimed we had a measles 'epidemic', and yet cases were at a 30 year low?

George Orwell would love our current media environment. It's, well, so 'Orwellian'.

Regards from AZ
 
Y2K Buying frenzy strikes again.

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I am not a dangerous psychotic!
I just play one at work.
 
Only the number of gun owners, and non-compulsory voting (i.e. forcing everyone to vote) prevents more draconian anti-gun activity.

Reporting a lower numberof gun owners (NOT GUNS) means that politicians can be more bold with harassing gun owners.

Say you owned all 200 million guns in the US. You are a serious minority, and you will spontaneously have them all confiscated.


Battler.
 
This chart measures in qualitative, not quantitative terms some portion of gun ownership and some measure of the population's eagerness to tell officials if they have a gun.

Gun sales are sailing along in the 90s and yet people are less willing to admit to gun ownership.

This is a measure less of hardware and more of political mood.

Rick

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"Congress have no power to disarm the militia. Their swords, and every other terrible implement of the soldier, are the birth-right of an American." Tench Coxe 2/20/1788
 
Did anyone else notice the jump during the last two election years? '96 and this year both show an upward trend. It could be an aberration of the sample pool, or it could be that some of the fence-sitters are wondering if this is the year the gov't tries for confiscation.
Eric

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Formerly Puddle Pirate.
Teach a kid to shoot.
It annoys the antis.
 
Gallup's integrity has been questioned for over 50 years.

Many will not admit to ownership of anything over the phone to a stranger.

Many do admit to ownership of things they do not have over the phone to strangers.

Tis a shame our Politicrats and media use polls to influence the sheeple.

An amazing number of sheeple signed petitions to restrict use and storage of the solvent Dihydrogen oxide. ( water ). The pitch was that it was the cause of many deaths etc.

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Sam I am, grn egs n packin

Nikita Khrushchev predicted confidently in a speech in Bucharest, Rumania on June 19, 1962 that: " The United States will eventually fly the Communist Red Flag...the American people will hoist it themselves."
 
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