Irresistable Force, meet Immovable Object

Irresistable Force, meet Immovable Object - The Star-Tribune "Minnesota Poll" has some "surprising" opinions about the Minnesota Personal Protection Act. The poll was taken right about the time the law passed its third month anniversary.

shows that Minnesotans who fear that the newly liberalized law will make the state a more dangerous place still overwhelmingly outnumber those who think it will be safer,

But the biggest change in public opinion since a Minnesota Poll in April, before the new law took effect, is an increase in those who foresee no change in overall safety - to more than one-third of the state's adults.

The percentage saying that the new law will make Minnesota safer fell 6 points since April, to 11 percent. The percent saying that the state will be more dangerous stood at 51 percent; in April it was 55 percent. The percentage predicting no effect from the law rose 10 points to 35 percent.

So after seven years of uninformed demigoguery and chicken-littling by the media dn the likes of Wes Skoglund (DirtbagFL, Minneapolis), and a solid year before any meaningful statistics are available, the percentage of Minnesotans who buy into the hype from the left is dropping, while the number of those who fall in somewhere near the truth is rising. OK, not bad.

Now, here's a suggestion for the folks behind the Minnesota Poll; do a survey of Minnesotans who actually know that the law doesn't "put a gun in the hand of every gang-banger" (as Skoglund has put it) or "allow every Minnesotan to pack heat" (a favorite of Matt Entenza); poll people who are actually well-informed about the issue, who have actually learned the truth about the law.

See if the numbers aren't pretty much inverted; 51% predicting no change to slight drop in crime, 11% predicting rising crime, the rest predicting some improvement.

Think we'll see that poll any time soon?

Posted by Mitch at September 14, 2003 08:21 AM