"80%" Favor More Gun Laws? Maybe.

As usual, the Left is out in full force.  (Someone should look into which faculty member at Whitefish Bay HS provokes all those student march-around march-around march-around follies, no?)

The current claim is that '80% of Wisconsinites want tougher gun laws'.  Well, maybe; the only support for that claim DuckDuckGo gives us is a 2018 Marquette poll.  (2018!!!)  It's the same number Tony Evers used in 2019 when he demanded a special session on the issue.  (Vos, to his credit, gaveled it in and out in about 3 seconds.)

...In the aftermath of the recent school shooting in Florida, Wisconsin residents support background checks on private gun sales and sales at gun shows. Eighty-one percent support such background checks while 16 percent oppose them. When the question was last asked in June 2016, 85 percent supported and 12 percent opposed background checks....

The Marquette text is misleading because it is imprecise.  People who actually know the law know that ANY gun sale made by a dealer (FFL), no matter where it's made, must have a background check.  Almost all gun show sales are made by FFL's; I've been to several shows and only ONCE did I see a private citizen offering an old rifle for sale.

If the question were honestly phrased, it might look like this:  "Do you favor a background check on your son if you sell him your pistol?  Rifle?  Would you pay $50.00 for that check?  $100.00??"

Or this:  "Do you favor a background check on yourself if your neighbor sells you his pistol?  Rifle?  Would you pay $50.00 for that check?  $100.00" 

One suspects that the "80%" number would shrink significantly.

That happens to be the ONLY gun law change drawing 80% support.  In the same poll, 56% of Wisconsinites favored a ban on 'assault-style weapons' (whatever those may be.)

Something that neither Evers nor the current rabble-rousers repeat from that same poll:

 ...Wisconsin voters are more divided on the effectiveness of possible new gun control laws in reducing mass shootings. Twelve percent think that new laws would reduce mass shootings a great deal, with another 22 percent saying this would reduce shootings a moderate amount. Nineteen percent say that additional gun control would reduce shootings only a little and 43 percent say that new laws would have no effect at all....

IOW, 62% think such new laws are a waste of time.  They're right, of course.