opinion

National gun groups target TCPalm opinion poll on assault rifles | Rich Campbell

At the risk of offending those who enjoy the warm caress of an AR-15, here goes:

TCPalm's opinion poll on assault rifles — and efforts to ban the sale of these weapons in Florida via a constitutional amendment — was commandeered this week.

Normally, our weekly opinion poll does well if it receives 1,000 votes. Our poll on assault rifles went live Wednesday afternoon; by Thursday morning, it had garnered more than 10,000 votes. By noon Friday, it had topped 30,000 and was still going strong.

The gun-control debate has taken on a new intensity in the wake of the Feb. 14 school shooting at Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland. Nineteen-year-old Nikolas Cruz has been charged with killing 17 students and staff with an AR-15 semiautomatic rifle.

The poll results also suggested some sort of conspiracy. Less than 4 percent of voters said they would support a constitutional ban on the sale of assault rifles. More than 96 percent said they would oppose it.

Hmmm.

Why the dramatic increase in traffic? And why were the results skewed so sharply in one direction?

Inquiring minds wanted to know.

I put these questions to Tom Mardis, executive producer for TCPalm. He determined the vast majority of poll traffic — almost 90 percent — came through referrals on Facebook via several national pro-gun organizations.

Typically, about one-third of referrals to our site come from social media, according to Mardis.

Some of the Facebook groups that linked to our poll included "Hypocrisy and Stupidity of Gun Control Advocates," "We Like Shooting" and "Oregon Republican League."

Members of another website, AR15.com, followed the admonition of one of their compatriots and voted in the poll. On the site's discussion board, the member who goes by the handle "9mmCarbine" wrote: "As many of you probably already know, those of us in Florida have been subjected lately to unrelenting harassment regarding our Second Amendment rights. There is a group here in Florida spearheaded by a congressman in Parkland where the school shooting was that is now proposing an amendment to our state constitution to an active assault weapons ban."

9mmCarbine provided a link to our poll and wrote: "Please go hit this poll and hit it hard."

Many did. One member, "nat130," bragged about voting 50 times in incognito mode.

Mardis said there was "an obvious attempt among those on the AR15.com site to purposely obfuscate the origin of the votes on TCPalm."

Doubting we would display the accuracy of the votes, "Bourbonator" posted: "Just wait until No votes start counting toward Yes votes, or No votes get ignored altogether. The media really doesn't like losing these kinds of things."

We don't view this as a win-or-lose issue. We run polls to get a sense of what local readers think about topics. However, this poll went national because of the passions surrounding the gun-control issue.

"DCV_117" posted: "Man this poll is getting crushed."

Now we know why.

Thursday morning, 9mmCarbine returned to thank the troops for their efforts: "Outstanding, guys. Thank you. As of now, the poll is still up, so let's keep fire directed at it."

Each opinion poll we run comes with a disclaimer: "This is not a scientific poll." The discussion above illustrates the point. When a hot-button issue such as gun control gets commandeered, we're all wise to take the results with a proverbial grain of salt.

I happen to support the Second Amendment. But I also have serious reservations about allowing public ownership of assault weapons. Moreover, I reject the claim by many gun enthusiasts that banning assault weapons would put us on a slippery slope to ban guns altogether.

There are a lot of people like me who would steadfastly oppose such efforts.

One final thought: Don't shoot the messenger.

Literally.

Rich Campbell is the Shaping Our Future columnist for Treasure Coast Newspapers. This column reflects his opinion. Contact him at 772-221-4207 or rich.campbell@tcpalm.com. Twitter: @RCampbellmc58