ISSUE GUIDES: Crime
The Red Flags section offers guidance on areas of public opinion research where findings may be misleading, unstable, or easily misinterpreted. Public Agenda uses several indicators to judge when survey results should be reported and used cautiously.
Red Flag Statements
| Strong Support for Gun Control, But Will It Work? | The Racial and Ethnic Divide |
Surveys find a majority of the public supports stronger gun control legislation, a level that has been fairly consistent over the past several years, but most people do not want a complete ban. About two-thirds of gun-owners say they own it for protection against crime. And two-thirds of Americans say the Constitution guarantees citizens the right to own a gun. Yet the public is divided on whether having a gun actually makes their home a safer or more dangerous place to be. Similarly, they are divided about whether stricter gun control measures would actually curb violent crime, with men more doubtful than women. In the case of the shootings at Virginia Tech, pluralities said stricter gun control laws or allowing adults to carry concealed handguns would have had no effect in reducing or preventing the violence there.
- About four in 10 say they have a gun in their home, and two-thirds of those who own a gun say they use it for...
- Americans are divided on whether having a gun in the house makes it a safer or more dangerous place
- Americans are divided on whether stricter gun control laws or allowing adults to carry concealed handguns would have ...
- Americans are divided on whether stricter gun control laws would reduce violent crime, with men more doubtful than women
- Two-thirds of Americans believe the words in the Constitution guarantee each person the right to own a gun
- Two-thirds of Americans favor stricter gun control laws, but just one-third favor a ban on the sale of all handguns
- Women are more likely to support stricter gun control
Tags: National public opinion data can mask an extremely important racial and ethnic divide in people's views about crime and criminal justice. Blacks are far more likely than whites to see police brutality as widespread and to distrust police overall. (Please see our issue guide on Race for additional material.)
- African-Americans are more likely to say that blacks are not treated fairly by the courts and that juries are ...
- Blacks are less likely than whites and Hispanics to say that the Constitution was meant to protect all people, and are ...
- Four in 10 blacks say they have felt they were stopped by the police because of their race, and whites are more likely than...
- There are significant racial differences between whites and blacks in their levels of confidence in the police
Public Agenda uses several indicators to judge when survey results should be reported and used cautiously:
- Results change when survey questions are reworded slightly.
- Results change when implications or trade-offs of a policy are pointed out.
- Results may be misleading if reported in isolation or out of context.
- Other research suggests that people have incomplete or inaccurate knowledge in this area.
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