02-09-2018, 10:37 AM
https://www.thetrace.org/rounds/atf-bump...-analysis/
Quote:In the week following the Las Vegas massacre on October 1, polls showed that nearly 75 percent of registered voters in gun-owning households supported a ban on bump stocks. Yet despite the public sentiment, an analysis by The Trace of comments submitted in response to a government proposal to regulate bump stocks shows that 85 percent of commenters opposed the measure.
Quote:After public outcry following the mass shooting, the ATF announced in December that it would again explore the possibility of regulating bump stocks by reclassifying them as machine guns. As an early step in the evaluation process, the agency initiated a public comment period to solicit input from manufacturers, retailers, and consumers — parties that would be impacted should the rules on bump stocks change. The window for public comments closed on January 25, and all told, the agency received more than 36,000 submissions, which are still being reviewed and posted online.
The Trace downloaded the text of more than 32,000 of the comments and used computer scripts to parse and analyze them. The comments overwhelmingly opposed regulating bump stocks. Only 13 percent were in support of the proposal to regulate the devices. (Another 2 percent didn’t express a clear stance.)
Quote:Twenty percent of the comments mirrored a form letter promoted by the Gun Owners of America, which opposes the regulation. Of those supporting ATF regulation, the majority of form letter submissions — a little over 6 percent of the total — came from a letter generated by the Giffords Law Center. An additional 2 percent of comments consisted of form letters promoted by other organizations.
The majority of comments — 72 percent, or about 23,000 — were unique responses written by individuals. To estimate the stances of these opinions, The Trace pulled a random sample of 1,000 submissions and labeled them as being for or against the regulation of bump stocks. Of the comments included in the sample, roughly 89 percent were written in opposition to the regulation, and 9 percent in support.
Quote:An additional round of analysis of our sample group revealed certain characteristics among unique commenters. For example, commenters who opposed the regulation were more verbose, writing messages that were on average 45 percent longer than those supporting the regulation of bump stocks.
Anti-regulation commenters were also more likely to mention the technical aspects of a gun, the ATF’s rule-making process, and the Constitution, while those favoring the regulation were much more likely to mention the Las Vegas massacre, as well as other mass shootings like the 2012 Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting, which left 20 children and six educators dead.