Montreal Gazette misleads with bogus poll

The Montreal Gazette has a gun-control theme going this weekend to try to capitalize on the (apparently) never-ending hysteria in Quebec over gun control.
An article by Hubert Bauch, "Guns: a Question of Control: Ban semi-automatics, Quebecers say", attempts to report on the results of recent joint "surveys" conducted by Leger Marketing and Ipsos-Reid for the Montreal Gazette.
One of my correspondents offers this observation and serious criticism, based on the lead question in the Ipsos-Reid survey:

In the latest survey by Ipsos Reid, "In Wake Of The Dawson College Shootings", conducted on behalf of the Montreal Gazette and published in that paper on Oct 21st, the first question asked was:

"A semi-automatic firearm is capable of loading and firing continuously, so only a trigger pull is required to fire each round. It is a restricted weapon in Canada, meaning it can be obtained only for target practice, as part of a historical collection, and in very rare cases for a job or self-protection. Should semi-automatic firearms be banned in Canada?"

THIS IS BOTH PATENTLY FALSE AND INCREDIBLY BIASED!

When someone who has no basic knowledge of firearms mechanics hears "firing continuously", they will almost certainly think of a "fully automatic" firearm, not a semi-automatic one. Semi-automatic firearms DO NOT FIRE CONTINUOUSLY! By the time the respondent hears the rest of this leading statement, "so only a trigger pull is required to fire each round", they have already made the flawed assumption that the question is about "fully automatic" firearms. Even some gun owners could make this false assumption, if they weren't paying close enough attention to the question.

This is compounded by the second sentence of the "lead in":

"It is a restricted weapon in Canada..." - not at all true!

Approximately 75% of all semi-automatic firearms are non-restricted because they are "commonly used for hunting and sporting purposes". Semi-automatic handguns are restricted (with some being "prohibited"), along with a few semi-automatic long guns as well. All fully automatic firearms are already prohibited, unless you are part of the "grandfathered" class of owners.

Millions of semi-automatic long guns are owned by law abiding Canadians, and are used safely and legally thousands of times every day in Canada for hunting, skeet and trap shooting, and pest and livestock control. Neither they nor their owners pose any risk to public safety.

These false and misleading statements call the results of the entire survey into question.

This is a serious skewing of the survey. It is factually invalid, and as a consequence, there can be no validity to the survey results whatsoever. Worse, it almost appears that it was deliberate. The errors of fact in the question are so grievous that one could reasonably conclude the intention was to produce the results obtained. The Gazette has never hidden its support for the registry and its anti-gun stance, but in this internet age, MSMs that blatantly manipulate public opinion, or fail to validate their sources, especially sources they have contracted to produce data, will be called to task. The days of yellow journalism in the mainstream are over. Just ask Christine Lawand.

If you agree, drop John Wright at Ipsos-Reid a note and tell him what you think, or fire a letter off to the Montreal Gazette.

For a discussion of what a semi-automatic firearm is, check this earlier post.

Update:

Numerous writers have challenged Ipsos-Reid on this poll. The following response has been received by several of them:

Thanks for your very thorough review.

All I can say is that this is the first time I can recall doing a poll like we did: The Montreal Gazette asked the polling firm Leger to poll Quebec on the topic... they wrote the questions and did the poll and then we received the exact translations from our client, CanWest, who asked to run them, as is, in the rest of Canada.

So, we had no involvement and influence on them except the data collection itself and a corresponding write up.

This, as I said, is rare and probably has happened only 3 or 4 times in the 18 years I've been with the firm...

So, thank you for your thoughts and I will send them on to CanWest directly and Leger.

Regards,
--------------------------
John Wright
Senior Vice President, Public Affairs
Ipsos Reid

So, besides handing off responsibility to Leger and the Gazette for the contents of the poll, Mr. Wright hints that the process itself was unusual. Are we looking at deliberately manufactured results to support the Gazette's position on gun control, and provide material in support of their special weekend edition? Did Leger fact-check their survey before taking it to the streets, or did they deliberately skew the questions to achieve a specific survey objective? These are important questions given the extent to which these straw polls are used to attempt to influence public opinion. Maybe this entire industry is crying to be regulated....