I could be wrong, but I believe the current mental health standard for a CC permit is having been involuntarily hospitalized for 14 days. Probably made sense in the 50's when it was written, not so much now. Might be time to update that.

Washington CeaseFire probably isn't biased at all.

Surely not every initiative needs to come from Tim Eyman.

@2

I'm sure thinking that will make lots of people feel better, and what matters most is how you feel. Not whether you win. Ask Mitt Romney.

Excellent! Put it on the ballot, then. Call it "Son of I-676." See if it does better than I-676, the mild gun control measure that lost, 71% to 29%. Come on, Goldy, let's see how well the "progressives" do the second time around.

What a shitty poll. "If we held a gun to your head that held over 100 bullets and had a grenade launcher attached would you support a ban on it?"

Reads like a Fox News Poll. Not helping bring about sensible change. Just more noise among pro and anti gun rants that seems to be dominating what should be a rational conversation.

@6

You too?

Ok then. Poll bias it is. Ignore the polls, they're all biased. Instead, keep repeating the slogans. You can't define an assault weapon. Guns don't kill people. Bad guy with a gun, good guy with a gun.

The polls say that's failing, but we don't believe the polls. Stick to your guns and never shift an inch.

@2 - Yeah, they probably are, but I'm sure Allison Peters Consulting isn't biased, or they wouldn't get work. Nor is Public Polling Policy, who conducted the national poll linked in the post.

Do you have, I don't know . . . evidence? Some shred? Anything?

@7, you entirely miss my point.

@9

I do see your point, and the facts contradict it. What you call "more noise" is in fact a clear shift in the public's thinking. This poll is entirely in line with national polls showing that the NRA's rhetoric isn't working. If anything, it's pushing them further outside the mainstream.

Accusing groups like CeaseFire of not being rational is part of the classic tough guy "let me mansplain it to you" line of the NRA. Polls say it's failing too.

What I'm interested in is trying to scare up any trace of dynamic thinking among those who defend the status quo of unrestricted access to 30 round magazines and unregulated private (and "private" ha ha) sales. I can't, no matter how much I prod, get a shred of originality out of any of these guys. They're stuck really hard in a loop and they can't fathom the world around them changing, so they stick to denial.

There's a battle going on to control the narrative, that's for sure.

Just want to point out, again, that the majority of us gun owners support the President's proposed reforms (bottom part of article):

http://abcnews.go.com/m/blogEntry?id=182…

Also, fuck the NRA.

Has anyone thought of using Kickstarter for popular initiatives like gun control that have popular support but don't have big money backers bc they won't make anyone richer? Seems like it could transform the initiative process... The Internet doesn't care for "Donate" buttons on websites like it does with Kickstarter.

What @12 said.

No sane hunter uses automatic weapons to hunt.

@14

No sane hunter uses automatic weapons to hunt.

They do if they're hunting people.

@6 Explain to me the polling bias in this question:

12. There is no law limiting certain high-capacity magazine clips that hold in excess of 10 bullets. In fact, eight states have already banned these types of clips. After hearing this, do you support a law to limit ammunition clips on guns to 10 bullets

Seems like a pretty straight forward statement of facts followed by a straight forward question to me.

@15 Depends on your definition of sane.

@16

It's biased because it doesn't acknowledge that you might be at an airport with a prissy Andy Sipowicz during a snowstorm when armed mercenaries take over the control tower and threaten to crash your wife's and Chief O'Brien's planes in a ploy to free a Latin American dictator, and the only hope of preventing this is if you have more than 10 bullets in your clip. After hearing this, you support a law to limit ammunition clips on guns to 10 bullets?

Define "assault weapon" plzthxbai

@16: Actually, that is a baised question, because before it asks you if you support "X," it informs you that lots of people already do support "X."

It is biased in that it steers the person answering to answer along the lines of the eight states mentioned. Subtle, but it is there.

This is why phone polls are always suspect. It is very easy to get any answer based on how you phrase the question. If you ask, "should illegal immigrants be given access to public schools on the taxpayer's dime?" people usually say "no," but if you ask, "should illegal immigrants be barred from public education?" people almost always answer "no" as well.

Same question, different phrasing, different answers. It's easy.

@19
An "assault weapon" is any rifle, carbine or pistol that is:
a. semi-automatic
b. has a removable magazine
c. AND THIS IS THE IMPORTANT ONE - has certain cosmetic features that do no have an effect on its usage in 99.99% of crimes committed.

A gun that is NOT an "assault weapon" is any rifle, carbine or pistol that:
a. is semi-automatic
b. has a removable magazine
c. does NOT have certain cosmetic features.

Which brings the discussion around, again, to what would be regulated/banned (and grandfathered in) rather than whether X% people support regulating A, B or C.

@15 we call those either criminals or the military.

I belonged to the latter. You?

@22 how many angels dance on the head of a firing pin?

I sincerely hope that polls like this "stiffen the resolve" of some members of congress, and that they get the opportunity to vote on a full slate of federal gun ban options. It will be an excellent way to find out whether the 2nd amendment crowd is truly now a paper tiger.

@14: Automatic weapons are very rare in private hands and have been illegal to produce or import since 1986 - are you wanting to make them EVEN MOAR illegal?

@24
So nice to see that, once again, you are interested in furthering the discussion rather than simply spewing uninformed comments.

Automatic weapons are extremely rare and highly regulated and crimes committed with them are even rarer.
Which just illustrates my point that what to ban/regulate should be the first discussion.

Haha, a lesson in "furthering the conversation" from the "You don't know the names of brown people who were killed and therefore cannot legitimately speak about this topic" guy.

In a world where everybody has the right to tell WiS off for being an annoying dumbfuck (this world), you can go fuck yourself.

#14, automatic weapons are illegal. Of course, the typical Seattle "progressive" doesn't know this because the typical Seattle "progressive" remains aggressively ignorant about anything having to do with guns. Which is why, in the end, the Seattle "progressives" will lose this fight.

#21, as long as the sample is properly randomized and the questions are neutral, 600 is enough. But this would not describe Ceasefire's poll. On one hand, they oversampled landlines, which skewed it conservative. But they asked a bunch of leading questions, which made the answers to those questions meaningless.

@29 - Tell us more about your expertise in polls

If you don't like guns, don't own one. If you like guns, own one. I like, so I do, but if you don't, there's nothing wrong with it. Just don't try to force your views onto me, with ignorance or slander. If I remember correctly, there were alot of Freedoms and Rights I vowed to protect when I served my country, whether I agreed with them or not. I don't remember only vowing to protect the ones I liked, or did I miss something? Ceasefire poll percentages sure seem to vary depending on what they want you to hear.