Talk:Public opinion on gun control in the United States

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Misleading title?[edit]

I was hoping this article would give insight into the varying opinions about gun control and gun ownership over time. Data on people's opinions and on people's gun owning habits has been gathered for many decades but this article touches on barely any of it.

Things that might beneficial to cover:

  • public opinions on particular subjects over time (ie, handgun bans, semiauto bans, bans on publicly carrying (concealed/open), etc
  • public opinions vs voting patterns- for example, in the 70s there was seemingly strong public support for banning handguns in MA, but when it came time to vote, voters were strongly against it. Similar patterns were observed in the 90s and 2000s regarding assault weapons bans
  • gun ownership patterns over the decades
  • a timeline of gun regulation efforts (successful or not), gun control attitudes, gun ownership patterns, etc — Preceding unsigned comment added by 136.57.214.46 (talk) 21:33, 18 January 2023 (UTC)[reply]

Copyright problem removed[edit]

Prior content in this article duplicated one or more previously published sources. The material was copied from: https://www.kusi.com/san-diego-city-council-approves-new-gun-safety-law/ https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2023/04/26/what-the-data-says-about-gun-deaths-in-the-u-s/ https://hub.jhu.edu/2022/05/02/highest-number-of-gun-related-deaths-in-2020-report/. Copied or closely paraphrased material has been rewritten or removed and must not be restored, unless it is duly released under a compatible license. (For more information, please see "using copyrighted works from others" if you are not the copyright holder of this material, or "donating copyrighted materials" if you are.)

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@Soibangla: Was there any reason for your revert besides an objection to the use of the word "generally" rather than "overwhelmingly"? I reworded the sentence and removed the bulleted list because it's an almost word-for-word copy of this source, specifically the passage that begins with Zoom in. I suppose it's not as critical to replace "overwhelmingly" with "generally", although I think their meanings are similar enough that it isn't really a big deal and I reworded the sentence out of an abundance of caution to avoid close paraphrasing issues. — SamX [talk · contribs] 17:13, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
SamX "Generally" is a preposterous misrepresentation of the source. I believe the paraphrasing of bullets is sufficiently distant from a copyvio. I recommend you restore with perhaps a tweak or two if you disagree. But "generally" needs to go. soibangla (talk) 17:25, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
I disagree that using the word "generally" is preposterous, but I'd be fine with something along the lines of registered voters were supportive of stricter gun control laws by a wide margin. As for the bullets, I don't think it's necessary to include the support percentages in response to every single survey question, but I think we could instead list some of the proposed measures, like so: Measures supported by the majority of respondents included criminal background checks, mental health evaluations of prospective gun owners, a 30-day for every purchase, and a law against civilian ownership of semiautomatic weapons. I don't think the bulleted list should be restored—it was very similar to the list in the Axios article (copyvios report), and I doubt that a tweak or two would be enough to resolve close paraphrasing issues. — SamX [talk · contribs] 17:51, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
well, we just really disagree about "generally." I'd prefer registered voters overwhelmingly supported a variety of gun control measures. "Overwhelmingly" is a key takeaway from the findings and source. Replace the bullets with narrative including numbers if you must, but I maintain they would require only a little tweaking, if any. soibangla (talk) 18:07, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
 Done [1]. I've added quotation marks to "overwhelmingly" as well. They aren't intended to be scare quotes, but rather attribution to the wording used in the source per MOS:QUOTE. — SamX [talk · contribs] 18:38, 6 August 2023 (UTC)[reply]
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