Course talk:POLI380SEPT2010Cutler/Survey/Gun Registry

Hey guys,

Just to start off before we make any set questions, I was wondering what kind of issues regarding the Gun Registry is of interest to everyone, and what aspects do we want to focus on for our survey. For me, I think the rural/urban divide is of particular interest.

Also I was wondering what everybody thought about some of these questions to start off with. Its still early, so I might be jumping into the middle right away, but we can always sort that out when we are discussing how we want to format our survey:

Do you know someone who owns a gun? Yes No Prefer not to Answer

Do you feel comfortable with the current gun registry? Yes No I Don't Know

Where do you currently live? GVRD BC Interior Vancouver Island Other

Where are you from? GVRD BC Interior Vancouver Island Other Provinces Outside of Canada

YulinShih 06:44, 3 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi Yulin, I like some of the questions that you have proposed off the start. I think an additional question should be "Are you interested in the issue of the gun registry?" because I find it interesting how many people actually have a strong opinion. So we could follow that up with a question of "How interested are you in the issue? Very interested, somewhat interested, or Uninterested." Perhaps we should also ask as a starting question is "Are you aware of the gun registry?".

I'm not sure but in your question of whether they know someone who owns guns, does that include if they own guns themselves? Perhaps we could ask them if they are a registered firearms owner, then we could ask them if they know anyone who is a registered firearms owner.

Rajit RajitMittal 18:56, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree with Rajit with the fact that we shuold ask whether they are a 'registered' firearm owner. If we just ask them directly whether they own a gun or know someone who owns a gun, it might be too personal and participants might refuse to answer.

Merrin, although your question gets to the heart of one the issues, I think you are assuming that people know about the gun registry and that they have already formed an opinion.

OnkarSohi 19:25, 4 October 2010 (UTC)

How about we change it to: Are you aware of the Gun Registry in Canada? 1. Yes, 2. No

Looking back at my initial questions, I'm wondering how we can change the wording or choices for the questions regarding location. I think that this will be key, and I think we can make it better. Any suggestions? YulinShih 02:46, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

It would depend on whether we are asking people from just BC or throughout Canada. If it's just BC, the location possibilities should be a. Greater Vancouver b. fraser valley c. Tri cities d. Interior e. other

this is one possibility. I would want to have a few more options so less people are choosing the 'other' option. It can give us more accurate information. OnkarSohi 05:43, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

I also think that it is necessary to distinguish between a more rural population versus an urban population because these two areas seem to be on opposing sides of the debate. So I believe are questions should be structured in such a way that accurately reflects a person residence based on this divide. I am not sure if any of the answer choices we have come up with would do this. Frankly, I myself am not sure how to do this. Perhaps the options Onkar has proposed could work, depending on whether we classify each option as rural or urban. I suppose one simplistic way of doing this could be to ask the respondent whether he or she lives in a rural area or urban area. However, this could be problematic as this is a somewhat subjective question. RajitMittal 19:17, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Some other questions that I believe we should ask are:

Are you aware of how your local MP voted on the gun registry issue? Yes No

If "Yes" then "Was this in accordance with your view?" Yes No

If "Yes" then "What was this view?" Vote to keep or Vote to scrap.

Has the way your MP voted on the issue had a positive, negative, or no impact on your opinion of your MP?

RajitMittal 19:34, 5 October 2010 (UTC)

Another question we might as if how successful do you think the gun registry has been? a. very successful b. successful c. unsuccessful d. not very successful e. Don't know

Once we get the answer to this question, we can relate it to the question asking about where the participant resides. These two could be correlated or it can be an example of an causation. OnkarSohi 02:45, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Now what I'm getting from all our discussion is that we are focusing first on awareness of the issue, and then on public opinion on it. Are we going to try and measure the relationship between location and opinion, age and opinion etc.?

On the topic of the age issue, should we also include the following question:

When were you born? 1. Before 1945 2. 1945-1960 3. 1961-1970 4. 1971-1980 5. 1981-1990 6. 1990 - 1995 7. 1996-

Onkar, my only concern with your question about successfulness is how we are going to define "successful", as different people have different opinions on what the gun registry should be accomplishing, it would be difficult to measure different levels of "success" YulinShih 04:55, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Yulin, ya each person will have a different definition of successful but that was what I was intending to do. With the answers, we'll be able to figure out their interpretation of the word successful. Also, we can use the answers from this question and combine it with the question asking about location and find any links or patterns between location and their definition and belief of success. Maybe compare the citizens living in rural versus citizens living in the city. OnkarSohi 05:13, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi everyone. You all have obviously done a lot of work here. I'll try to catch up as quickly as I can.

I agree with Rajit that beginning this series of questions with a question that identifies the participant's level of interest in the issue is important. We might spot a correlation between their level of interest and their support/opposition to the registry.

I also feel that we should avoid asking about whether or not they are registered gun owners. They might refuse to answer our question or, even worse, answer it falsely.

I share Yulin’s interest in the rural/urban dimension to this issue. I think that knowing where our participants live would give us useful information. We could use it investigate a relationship between people’s feelings on the issue and crime rates in their neighbourhoods, for example. I think that taking down their postal codes would do the trick. This way we could classify the responses in whatever way we see fit down the road.

What interests me the most about this issue is learning about whether or not British Columbians feel that the gun registry will make them ‘safer’. It is this perception factor that intrigues me most. I have suggested a couple of questions on the main page that might start us off if this is something the group is interested in as well.

-Michael Cheon

I think that you have touched on a good point Michael, that being a perceived increase or decrease in safety with the registry. However, I believe the wording of your question may be off because the gun registry has been in place for quite some while now, and it seems as if you are asking that if it is enacted, will it make Canadians feel safer. I believe a better question may be "Do you feel that the long gun registry is a useful tool for law enforcement agencies in Canada?" This will allow us to gauge whether people have an increased sense of safety with the registry or not. This may also address the issue of "successful" discussed by Onkar and Yulin. RajitMittal 18:37, 6 October 2010 (UTC)

Hi guys. I think you've all done a good job of setting up the general direction of our questions. Starting off with general questions about knowledge of/ interest in the issue is a good idea. Using location to narrow down or find correlations in attitudes towards the registry also seems like the right choice. However I'm not sure why we are all so hesitant to ask about gun ownership, attitudes of people who own guns vs. those who do not are at the core of the issue.

Perhaps we could pose the question in a simple unoffensive manner, -Are you in support of private gun ownership? Yes-1 No-2 Don't Know-9 -Do you currently own a gun that is either registered or unregistered? Yes-1 No-2 (Including 'registered or unregistered' in the question may prevent them from falsifying their answer or having to admit to owning an unregistered weapon.) -If yes, is it a shotgun or rifle? Yes-1 No-2 (This is important because the long-gun registry is at issue, not handguns which have always required registration. See, http://www.rcmp-grc.gc.ca/cfp-pcaf/fs-fd/restr-eng.htm) -Do you support the long-gun registry? Yes-1 No-2

These are just some preliminary thoughts, hopefully we can come up with some questions regarding safety as Michael and others have suggested. -Ravi Sahota

You are absolutely right, Rajit. The original wording of the questions I proposed was completely off. With the amnesty extension into 2011 for current owners of long guns, it feels to me as though the long gun registry hasn't really 'taken effect' yet. This doesn't change the inaccuracy of the wording and it's misleading effects. Thanks for pointing that out. I have edited my questions.

I completely agree with Ravi in that the issue here is the registering of rifles. I think Yulin will agree too as it has a lot to do with the rural/urban divide on the issue. People in rural communities obviously have uses for rifles that those of us in urban centres do not. I also like the way Ravi put together questions about whether or not the survey participants own guns. It is useful information and perhaps the questions won't put people off if asked in this way.

I also really like the question about the registry of long guns being a useful tool for law enforcement. I think it is a slightly different dimension to the 'feeling of safety' and an interesting one. I'm not sure it encapsulates the 'feeling of safety factor' that I'm looking for. There are effects from the registry that would contribute to a person's perceived security that would not directly involve law enforcement such as, perhaps, deterring people from purchasing rifles to begin with.... I'm not sure about this.... let me sleep on it.

I would also like to suggest we incorporate a question or two that asks people how they feel about the cost of the registry. Maybe a question that touches on whether or not people feel the benefits are worthy of the expense? I read in The Globe and Mail that the RCMP estimates the actual cost being upwards of 70 million dollars for 2010-11. (http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/opinions/editorials/gun-registrys-price-was-not-as-advertised/article1717453/)

-Michael Cheon

Okay, so it looks like we all have come up with some good ideas, and it looks like we all have a few issues we want to look into. I'm going to try and piece together all of these right now. This is going to give us a very rough idea on what questions we want to keep/omit/edit. Of course, if we come up with additional questions that look suitable for this, we can add it in at any time! - also Michael, I like the idea of incorporating the benefits/costs of the registry, but I'm not sure exactly how you want to word the question, so I'll leave it out for now, but please add it to the list afterwards, because I think that is something we need. YulinShih 18:05, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I never thought of the issue of safety in terms of if it deters people from buying the guns in the first place. I do agree with you Michael that this is potentially another dimension that should be addressed. I think that Ravi's idea of including "unregistered firearm" will be more offensive to people. Perhaps we could simply ask if the person owns a firearm, without mentioning registered or unregistered. This would still allow us to see the differing opinions between those who own firearms and those who do not. Also, I believe the answer choices for the question "How interested are you in the issue?" need revising. I believe that one cannot be somewhat uninterested, as that would mean that one is also somewhat interested. Therefore, I propose removing that answer choice from the question. RajitMittal 19:08, 7 October 2010 (UTC)

I think that we should explicitly separate long-gun registry vs. restricted firearm registry. I think that the long-gun registry is important and I personally know the effect it would have on law-enforcement as I have worked in the field and dealt with long-guns (and occasionally restricted guns) on a fairly regular basis. At this point in time, law enforcement officers can search a person to see if they have a PAL and if there are any guns registered to him or her. It can be misleading if long-guns are not registered because the officer would logically assume that the person doesn't own one....I have a PAL but don't own any guns...so how can that officer be certain I don't own one or I just haven't registered it?

However, I do not feel very strongly about the need to implement long-gun registry on its own, especially because of the that significance of Canadian hunting culture. So if a question asked whether or not I support "the gun registry" (hence long and restricted together...), it would confuse survey-takers and affect the sincerity of the reply. Because in a question such as this I would have to say strongly agree but am only referring to restricted and my opinion about long-gun would be lumped into that answer, even though I would have a very different response if this long-gun question was asked separately.

What about (probably needs refining to be legitimate....)....

"Do you think that the gun-registry will reduce the number of national gun-related crimes and deaths annually?"

What about something about the effect of prohibited handguns (non-registered or non-compliant with Firearms restrictions) - or modified long-guns (i.e. sawed-off shot guns) making them prohibited? Maybe ask people about how they feel about their personal safety - in light of the amount of illegal firearms here?

..I know that almost 80+% of handguns in Canada (that are here illegally and not registered) come from Washington state alone and are smuggled here through the border. Not to mention, most illegal handguns in Canada have their serial numbers burned off so it is impossible to trace its origin.

The last part about illegal ones may not be relevant to our survey because it is a bit on the periphery of the topic of "gun-registry"...but it is at least something to think about. --Mgalloway115 20:06, 7 October 2010 (UTC) (Merrin Galloway)

A question that can be asked from what Merrin has stated is: How strongly do you agree with the following statement? Gun registry will decrease gun related crimes in my constituency a. strongly agree b. agree c. disagree d. strongly disagree e. don't know

this question can be worded differently but this is just one possibility.

Also, asking what gender they are can give us very important information. We can compare the beliefs of men vs women while looking at different age categories. It's an obvious question but something I think we just forgot about OnkarSohi 00:59, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

Absolutely! Gender is important. One concern though, would the question make a person feel insulted? I'm thinking about telephone and face to face interviews here. I think it's not an issue for an online version of the survey. If we leave it up to the interviewer to indicate gender on the survey without asking does it affect the integrity of the survey?? I don't know. Just a thought.

I've added a couple of questions about the cost element. Let me know what you think. I find it very hard to work in the cost/benefit angle. Everything I think of ends up sounding like I'm fishing for a particular answer. I don't want to influence the participant but it's hard to give them information they may need to answer the question without sounding like I'm trying to plant and idea in their heads. Thoughts??

-Michael Cheon

I think gender is very important and if it is an anonymous survey, it should make people feel insulted. It's kinda a demographic thing. Shouldn't we ask age as well?

Also, I think it might be important to add something about profession. I know a police officer would have very different things to say than the average citizen. Perhaps not taking this into account would cause somewhat biased data? We should try to be random in regards to choosing a variety of people of different age, gender, profession... What about if there are any kids? Again, parents might feel differently about the laws than young people without a family.--Mgalloway115 22:22, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

ONE MORE THING: I added some points to the actual question section - I know we are supposed to talk about the questions here, but it seemed easier to notate it there than having people refer back and forth. Everything I suggested is in < ,Merrin>. Feel free to change or edit it and then delete my points.

I have a bit of an issue with many of the questions being about "rifles" though.

Rifles are ONE type of long-gun. Shotguns are not considered rifles. Automatic weapons are also a different category but every kind of them are entirely prohibited in Canada so they don't need to be discussed.

"Long Guns" refers to both shot guns and rifles so I think that term should be used instead. There are different types of rifles and shot guns as well - bolt action, semi-auto, pump-action - also based on the type of gauge of shots used or calibre of bullets. Long-Gun is a very broad category that includes all of this, and all variation amongst rifles and shotguns. - it is more inclusive i think.

"Handguns" refers to the individual handguns, which are usually differentiated by brand, barrel length, calibre of ammo etc.. - S&W 9mm, Glock, Baretta....etc. (9mm, .22..)

Again, that is why "handguns" should be used because it is known to be a term that signifies all different types of these particular guns. Pistols and Revolvers are considered to be a separate class, but most understand what is meant by handgun that i don't think we need to specify in this case.

--Mgalloway115 22:42, 8 October 2010 (UTC)

I believe that knowing the profession of the participant can give us some very important information. The hard part willl be to the particpants what their profession is because many will refuse to answer the question. Some people might be hesistant in telling their profession but are willing to tell thier income or vice versa. From the information, we can make categories based on income and see what income supports the gun registry and what doesn't. One of the knocks on the gun registry is the cost and many citizens don't want to pay extra tax money towards something that will never effect them. OnkarSohi 20:46, 9 October 2010 (UTC)

How important is it for us to differentiate between the Long Gun portion and the rest of the registry? Should we be asking questions that cover both (i.e. do you support the registry, do you support the long gun portion of the registry)? And if we are doing this, should we put the questions side by side, or split them up based on the issue of long guns, and others? Also, regarding the age question, I made it based on year of birth, and I grouped them very arbitrarily. Does anybody have any input on ways to improve it? Finally, I think Merrin is right by grouping based on occupation rather than income. An accountant may have a totally different opinion than a small business owner, and both could generate the same income in a year. Although that's a poor example, I'm sure that illustrates why we shouldn't group people based on income. YulinShih 04:17, 10 October 2010 (UTC)

The whole issue at hand is the long-gun registry if I'm remembering it correctly. Handguns have been restricted for a long time as Merrin mentions above. Long-guns include shotguns and rifles and this is the issue we are interested in. The government has currently placed an amnesty on licensing them. However the questions about gun ownership in general (handguns and long-guns) are probably going to be indicative of attitudes that cover both types of owners so they don't need to be changed. Other questions about support of the registry or particular issues should make it clear that we are referring to long-guns only.

As for the age question, why are we hesitating to ask the age of the individual? If we were to ask 'what is your age?' we can code the responses after by decade if desired. If the person chooses not to give us an age, it's just a 99, or 'don't know'. I don't see someone being less offended by offering a number of decades as options.

I like the occupation idea, but since our issue is the gun-registry our questions might be best allocated toward that issue directly. We only get 5 questions right? Maybe we should suggest it for the general part of the survey.

As for new Qs: Just a couple of suggestions that might give us some insight into the strength of the views that anti/pro gun registry individuals may hold. Do you feel comfortable having a gun in the home? Yes-1 No-2 Don't Know-9 Do you think the registry should have mandatory training as a part of licensing? Yes-1 No-2 Don't Know-9 -Ravi Sahota (Sorry I don't know why my formatting is all messed up)

Yeah I agree that the long-gun part should be emphasized. Handguns must be legally registered and have been for years and years. The registry pertaining to long-guns is recent. It is also creating the most fuss because of how much it costs, questions about its necessity, and especially because certain segments of the population think it is too much hassle - i.e. hunters.

can't add a signature for some reason - Merrin Galloway (Oct. 10, 6:51pm)

Although I think that it would be interesting to know the profession of the participant I think maybe knowing their level of education could be interesting as well. I agree that it would be a harder question with income as the question is a bit more invasive and personal. Making categories based on education and views on gun registry could also be a thought. I agree with the idea about the relationship of cost and gun registry, I think the cost of increased taxes towards this would be a large factor. Also I think the idea of gun registry increasing/decreasing safety would be another really important reason for accepting or being against the policy so it would be good to keep the questions analyzing those views . Differentiating between long gun registry and just registry in general is very important we should either cover both or just long gun specifically. If we are asking about long guns only then maybe we should incorporate shot-guns and rifles in our questions in order to clarify for those who may not know? I definitely think we should keep the age question, I edited it to stop at 1992 as that is when the youngest respondent is at voting age. - KianaMoradi

Another question we can ask is what party they voted for during the last election. We can relate this question to the question asking whether you are in favour or against the long gun registry. The answer to the first question should make sense ideologically to the second one. For example, if they voted conservative, they should also be in favour of getting rid of the registry. Also, we should ask if their MP voted in the same way they would have, if they voted for that MP. OnkarSohi 04:49, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

I agree that their ideological preferences along with our other questions may provide some important information in regards to differentiating whether the person genuinely has an opinion about the registry or has formed his or her opinion about it in relation to his or her party preferences. However, I also believe that people may find this question somewhat intrusive or personal as many people do not like to share their ideological preferences with someone, let alone someone over the phone. Perhaps we could word it in such as way that seems less personal, for example by asking two question and wording them in a less invasive manner:

"With which one of the major political parties do you most closely identify? 1.NDP 2.Liberal 3.Conservative 4.None of the above 9.Choose Not to Answer."

Then we could ask "Does the stance of the party with which you most closely identify mirror your stance on the long gun registry? 1.Yes 2.No 3.Don't Know".

This way, we do not have to ask if the person voted which may be a little personal, and we can eliminate leaving out those who did not vote in the last election but nonetheless support a party and have an opinion about the registry.

RajitMittal 17:59, 11 October 2010 (UTC)

So we need to narrow the questions down. I think on the main survey page it said that we need to choose 5? I'm guessing we don't include the demographic type questions out of our 5...Like age, gender, profession...political orientation I guess - Rajit

We should start thinking about which ones we think are the most important.

Any ideas?--Mgalloway115 05:03, 15 October 2010 (UTC)

I think it would be good idea if we all could just post which questions we like the most (approx. 5-7) and we can see which ones most people like best and choose those ones. For me I like:

Do you believe the long gun registry is a useful tool for law enforcement agencies in Canada?

Do you approve of the long-gun portion of the registry?

How much does the cost of the federal gun registry factor into your decision to support or oppose it?

Do you believe the registering of long guns has affected gun related deaths across the nation?

Do you believe the registering of long guns makes Canadians safer?

Are you in support of private gun ownership?

Do you feel comfortable with the current gun registry?

YulinShih 06:38, 18 October 2010 (UTC)