Poll Claims Tennesseeans ‘Still’ Support Gun Control

Tennessee is a pretty pro-gun state. After the mass murder at a Nashville private school, the governor called a special session of the legislature to pass some kind of gun control and all that happened was some people making jackasses of themselves. That’s about it.

And if there were going to be electoral ramifications for that, we’ve failed to see it. Most of the lawmakers managed to get re-elected. 

But it seems that the pollsters haven’t gotten the message. They’re still pushing the idea that people in Tennessee really want gun control.

The Vanderbilt Poll, conducted twice a year on a variety of issues of importance to registered voters, showed respondents overwhelmingly support passing laws that would require gun owners to report if their gun is lost of stolen, at 86%.

Support differed from Republicans to Democrats, with even 74% of MAGA Republicans supporting such a measure. Only 8% of respondents said they oppose such a law.

Respondents also overwhelmingly said they would support a red-flag law if it was passed in Tennessee. That margin was more than five to one, or 78% in favor and only 14% opposed, according to poll officials.

According to the poll, Tennesseans also oppose—by a margin of three to one—expanding the right to carry long guns such as hunting rifles, assault rifles, and shotguns. Opposition to such a measure increased slightly from May—from 71% to 74% today.

Yeah, I’m unconvinced.

I can’t help but think about how pollster Nate Silver called out all the polls leading up to the presidential election, saying there was no way for the numbers to keep working out like they did without pollsters putting their fingers on the scales.

As I noted then, if they’d do it with one thing, what’s to say they wouldn’t do it with something–or everything–else?

After all, as noted, gun control sure doesn’t seem to be winning when it comes to elections in Tennessee. Part of that is because these polls never actually gauge how important the issue is to anyone responding. They might support such a law, but not enough to vote for someone pushing it. There are other issues more important to them than gun control.

However, I find it very funny how one of the most pro-gun states in the nation is supposedly host to a groundswell of support for gun control, but it was found by a university that has a very leftward lean. Maybe not as leftward as most universities, but that’s like saying someone is just slightly to the right of Mao. It might be true, but it doesn’t mean that much.

The truth is that if Tennesseeans wanted gun control so badly, why didn’t they elect Gloria Johnson to the Senate? She made a name for herself as being one of those jackasses I mentioned previously, and yet she didn’t just lose, she lost badly. Where are all these gun control voters? If the policies are that popular, surely she should have done better than not even 40 percent of the vote, right?

Again, I refer you to Silver’s comments. I don’t know that the poll was manipulated, but I don’t see anything to suggest it wasn’t, either.