Government Poll Project: Gun Control

1A

By Vivianna Sepulveda and Angela Tran

Page One:
#1 Topic: Our topic is gun control, laws or policy that regulates the possession and purchase
of fire arms. This topic is very controversial because we have the right to bear arms, but not
everybody agrees with it. Some people want to ban gun but others dont want to leave our
society defenseless. This matter is important to the President because the Second
Amendment greatly affects American lives, not just for defense but some people become
victims of murders.
#2 Hypotheses: For our first question, we believe people will be split evenly on the topic
because people tend to be conservative or liberal with this; there tends to be no neutral stance.
Question two; we believe that most people will agree with the Second Amendment because it
is one of our fundamental rights. Question three; we believe most people will want more
restrictions, so only people who are law abiding citizens. Since question four is biased, we
believe that most people will agree with the question. Question five is also biased so we
believe that no one will want convicted murders of owning guns.
#3 About the Group we chose to Ask: The respondents are our family and friends. Half of
the respondents are of the younger generation, the ones new in politics. It ranges from the age
18 to 25. The other half are citizens that are more familiar with politics; ranging from age 30 to
66. Also, half of the respondents are females and the other half are males. We selected these
groups because we wanted to see the different opinions between the two generations.
#4 How we Conducted our Polls: We conducted our survey through phone by calling. We
call the respondent and asked them to participate in our poll. If he/she agrees then we ask
question one, wait for an answer then move on to the next question. If the respondent doesnt
understand the question, then we explain to them what the question is asking. We believe it
affects our results by how quickly people had to think about their answers, rather than having
an unlimited time amount. Also, if the respondent didnt understand the question, it was easy to
explain to them through calling.
#5: Questions:
1. Should gun ownership be prohibited?
2. Do you agree with the right to bear arms?
3. Should there be more restrictions on buying guns?
4. Should teachers be allowed to bring guns to school so they can save your childs life
in case of an attack?
5. Should someone convicted of murder be able to purchase a gun?

Page Four:
This project was a new experience for both of us. It was a great way to learn how polling
works. We were able to learn about the views of our friends and family. There were some views
and things we didnt know about them. So this was a good experience to learn what they think
about politics, more specifically gun control.
When we started to call and ask people to participate in our polling project, it was somewhat
hard to do. The reason for that is because we werent sure how to ask people. After a while, we got
use to it and kept calling more and more people. What we did was call our respondents and asked
if they wanted to participate in our polling project. We explained what it was about, gun control, and
what it was for, government polling project. If they agreed and understood, we asked them the first
question and wait for a response. After the response, we asked the next question and so on. At the
end of the survey, we thanked them for participating. It was a fun and easy project.
Whatever our own personal views were, we didnt allow them to come through our polling
experience. We refrained from guiding the participant in the first 3 questions. We tried our best not
to tell people our opinions and tried to explain the questions as neutrally as we can.
Our results were fairly different from our hypothesis. For question one, we hypothesize that
the results would be split evenly in half-half would prohibit gun ownership and the other would want
it. The results were more people said gun ownership should not be prohibited. For question two,
everyone we had polled agreed with the right to bear arms, especially since its the meaning of the
Second Amendment. So we were correct for question two. For question three, we were also
correct; we believe that more people would want more restrictions on buying guns. However, for
question four we believe most people would agree to let teachers bring guns to school in case if
there was an attack that could harm the children. Most people said no to let teachers to bring guns
to school. Many of respondents believe that it was dangerous. There could have been possibilities
that the teacher could misuse the gun, the children playing with the gun, or the invader could take
the gun from the teacher which could cause more problems. Last, for question five, we were
somewhat correct that no one would agree to let convicts of murder to purchase a gun. However,
there was one person who said it depended on the circumstances of the murder.
Gun control affects many people in different ways. Many people have contradicting thoughts
about it. In our project, many of the respondents believe gun ownership should not be prohibited,
but there should be more restrictions on it. Question four was a good example to bear arms, to use
guns for self-defense, but many people believe it was dangerous. Gun control could be a good and
dangerous object. This is why this topic is so controversial.