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Ask a silly question...

Policy Exchange has been, cough, spending its money on a yougov poll on firearms, knives and the like. Most of the findings are fairly unremarkable - people don't like gun and knife crime and would like the boys and girls in blue to do something about it.

However, there is also this:

"The poll also showed that 18 per cent of men said they would be able to obtain a gun, compared to six per cent of women. Overall, 12 per cent of respondents said they knew how to get one.

Gavin Lockhart, the research director of Policy Exchange, said: "It is clear that it is no longer just hardened criminals who have access to guns or deprived inner city communities which are affected by them."

Well, one could take it at face value, or ask quite what results one would expect from asking an apparently vague question that some respondents might feel was putting their masculinity on the line. I would feel justified in saying that I knew, in outline, how to obtain an illegal weapon too: hang around dodgy pubs in the less salubrious parts of London and engage suspect individuals on availability, buy one in another part of Europe and hope I do not get pulled over by customs on the way home, buy a decommissioned firearm and repeat part of step one, steal one from someone else, etc etc etc. Amazing what you can discover from reading the papers.... All very simple in theory, although not something I am planning on testing.

I think we are also back at the survey shocker of the 1980's, in which large numbers of children claimed to have seen a video nasty, causing much hang wringing and the like, before it was discovered that most of the children were either A - consciously lying, or B- thought anything frightening (Dr Who, Rentaghost, whatever) was a video nasty.






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This entry was posted on Tuesday, September 11, 2007 at 7:58 am. You can skip to the end and leave a response.

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Blogger Old BE said... 8:25 am

I'm surprised that the other 88% wouldn't know where to start. It can't be that difficult can it?  



Anonymous Anonymous said... 8:26 am

That is exactly what I thought when I first read those findings. If you ask a young guy could he get access to a gun, so many are going to say 'yes' knowing that they'd never have to actually do it.

I really hope the think-tanks don't start going down the same headline-grabbing route that the political parties make so much use of.  



Blogger Croydonian said... 8:32 am

And Policy Exchange is basically sound isn't it?  



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