With headlines like “Most Gun Owners Support Stricter Laws—Even NRA Members,” and “Do Gun Owners Want Gun Control? Yes, Some Say Post-Parkland” becoming increasingly common, former NRA President Marion P. Hammer recently penned an article for the website Sunshine State News setting the record straight. “None of these pollsters has access to NRA’s membership list,” she confirmed. To safeguard members’ privacy, she said, the list isn’t distributed—and anyone claiming to have access to it is lying.
In other words, pollsters are relying on respondents to tell them whether they’re NRA members or gun owners. They have no way of confirming whether the responses are honest—and in fact, these questions lend themselves to false answers. After all, how many gun owners would tell a stranger—who may already know their name and address—about their guns or NRA membership, and risk that information being added to a database or disseminated irresponsibly?
To counter such inaccurate (and often biased) polls, NRA commissioned a national survey of 1,000 NRA members, and found that, in reality:
89 percent oppose banning “assault weapons”;
92 percent oppose banning sales between private citizens;
92 percent oppose so-called “universal” background checks;
93 percent oppose gun registration; and
91 percent support laws keeping guns out of the hands of the mentally ill.
“NRA members … know better than to believe anything they read, see or hear in the mainstream media about NRA membership views or gun owner views on gun control,” Hammer concluded. “You should, too.”
