The CNN assault weapons poll, which used to be (if I recall correctly) about 60-40 in favor of extending the assault weapons ban, is now 55-45 in favor of lifting it (or, more precisely, not extending it).
Of course, the result is still junk, and CNN should be ashamed of intimating to the public that the result is meaningful. They do write, below the graphic showing the results,
This QuickVote is not scientific and reflects the opinions of only those Internet users who have chosen to participate. The results cannot be assumed to represent the opinions of Internet users in general, nor the public as a whole. The QuickVote sponsor is not responsible for content, functionality or the opinions expressed therein.
But if the result doesn’t represent the public’s opinion, and only reflects who happened to be better organized online to drive up the statistics, then why should a news organization that aspires to accuracy and candor report it? My sense is that the reason this thing draws eyeballs is precisely that some readers, who aren’t knowledgeable in statistics, do wrongly ascribe some meaning to it.
I’m happy that people won’t be able to tout the results of this poll as evidence in favor of gun restrictions. But I’d be happier still if serious news organizations got serious about this subject, and dropped this sort of misleading nonsense.
Comments are closed.