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ADVERSARY POLLING AND THE CONSTRUCTION OF SOCIAL MEANING: Implications in Gun Control Elections in Massachusetts and California
Author(s) -
BORDUA DAVID J.
Publication year - 1983
Publication title -
law and policy
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.534
H-Index - 45
eISSN - 1467-9930
pISSN - 0265-8240
DOI - 10.1111/j.1467-9930.1983.tb00303.x
Subject(s) - gun control , polling , public opinion , meaning (existential) , control (management) , survey data collection , gun violence , adversary , general social survey , political science , public administration , public relations , poison control , sociology , suicide prevention , law , computer security , politics , economics , computer science , management , psychology , social science , environmental health , medicine , statistics , mathematics , psychotherapist , operating system
Opinion survey data have been used to assert that the public's desire for serious gun control has been blocked by the “gun lobby.” This construction is opposed by a survey‐based counter construction developed by the gun lobby. The superiority of the gun lobby's construction is supported by this article's survey data and by analysis of actual elections in 1976 in Massachusetts and in 1982 in California. What blocks the public from getting strict gun control is that the public does not want it.