A Guide to Candidates' Views on Guns

USING GRNC's REMEMBER IN NOVEMBER GUIDE

Introduction

This guide estimates where candidates stand on gun issues by comparing their views with those of a control group of gun owners. As noted below, a "4-STAR" candidate agrees with pro-gun voters on at least 90% of gun issues, a 3-STAR agrees on least 80%, a 2-STAR on at least 70%, a 1-STAR on at least 60%. A 0-STAR candidate agrees on less than 60% of gun issues.

What Candidate Listings Mean

GRNC's "Remember in November" project estimates candidates' views on "assault weapons," concealed handguns, gun storage laws, gun rationing, and the Second Amendment.  THE EVALUATIONS HEREIN ARE NOT ENDORSEMENTS. We issued surveys first to a control group of gun owners and then to candidates. Next, we measured how closely each candidate's views and voting record (if available) agree with the control group.  Pay more attention to voting records than survey results unless, of course, you believe politicians never lie.

Sample Listing:

Name      Par/Dis   Survey   Vote   Other   Eval

Smith  J   R-15        95           92       95      ****

“PAR/DIS”: Candidate’s party and district. “D”=Democrat, “L”=Libertarian, “r”=Republican. Number is district number. Example: “J Smith,” above is a Republican from the 15^th District.

"SURVEY": The percentages listed depict agreement between a given candidate and our control group (e.g. an "80" under the "Survey" section means 80% of the candidate's answers agreed with the Conservative Gun Owners).  “NR” means the candidate failed to return the survey.

"VOTE": Votes are more accurate than surveys and should be given more attention in determining candidate stance. Where available, this column indicates how often candidates' votes agree with the control group of gun owners (e.g. a "90" under "Voting Record" indicates candidate's voting record agrees 90% of the time with what was desired by control group).

"OTHER": Derived from evaluations by other gun groups, bill sponsorship, etc.

"EVAL": The evaluation is not a rating. It estimates percentage of time candidate is expected to agree with the Conservative Gun Owners.  The maximum **** candidate tends to agree with conservative gun owners at least 90% of the time.

**** Expected to agree with conservative gun owners on at least 90% of gun issues

*** Expected to agree with conservative gun owners on at least 80% of gun issues

** Expected to agree with conservative gun owners on at least 70% of gun issues

* Expected to agree with conservative gun owners on at least 60% of gun issues

0 Expected to agree with conservative gun owners on less than 60% of gun issues or else candidate failed to return survey & insufficient information exists to make evaluation.  Is he / she hiding something?