3 in 10 Americans believe armed rebellion might be necessary soon

[Cerim Treascair]

The others beat me to it.  863 is NOTHING for a sample size, especially considering the US population.

[Sylvana]

Given that nature of the USA, how would an armed rebellion even be possible from a logistics standpoint.

Ignoring things like drones and such, how on earth would they be able to co-ordinate a massive armed rebellion in the 50 different states simultaneously? I know that with the internet and modern technology communicating has never been easier, but actually organizing the people for a rebellion over such a large geographic area in so many isolated areas would be a nightmare. With every attempt at co-ordination the chances of the rebellion being leaked to the authorities and effectively shutting down that cell increases.

I don't think an armed rebellion is possible in America anymore. The same effect could be achieved through individual states leaving the federation, but that would be done more on a political level than an armed rebellion one.

[Distind]

And this is why stoners annoy me. Or at least the ones that smoke the paranoia inducing pot.

But yeah, armed rebellion has support from the armchair revolutionary set of all varieties.

[dietcokewithlemon]

Take a look at Doomsday Preppers.

I think most of these people don't have a fixed idea of who is going to start a civil war/breakdown of society/communist takeover/Red Dawn/Mad Max/Walking Dead/Fallout/ etc..... just that SOMETHING is going to happen. They just believe America is going to breakdown.

Most of them are actually scared of other citizens rather than the government. The crazy belief that when "the shit hits the fan" it will be everyone out for themselves and western civilisation will collapse into anarchy overnight. For most of them the guns aren't for shooting cops and soldiers but are actually for killing their neighbours when the food runs out. Of course they will only shoot people in self defence to stop looting. Which they know is definitely going to happen, so best buy guns.

[Barbarella]

*raises an eyebrow*

EIGHTEEN PERCENT of Democrats say this, too?

Forgive me for not jumping on the "Holy shit" bandwagon but something's fishy here.  Not because of the above, but because of a few things.

Namely, an armed rebellion from what?  Some people think this means corporations.  Some people think this means government.

How do we know how many Republicans thought along those lines, too?  Independents?

Finally, what was the sample size of this study?  What was the selection process?

How many people declined to participate?

The sample size was 863 registered voters. I don't know how many people declined to answer questions, but they were randomly selected nationwide. The article has tables regarding two questions specifically (about Sandy Hook and about 'armed rebellion') detailing which people agreed and disagreed, how they were registered to vote, their sex, and their level of education. It doesn't link to the study but I'm sure it wouldn't be hard to find more about it online.

It's not a large sample size--I think the generally accepted number for a 'sample size' of the population is a thousand--but it's enough to be scary.

I'm not going to make much of this. Where was this poll taken. Now, if the majority of the US population did the poll, that might be more accurate. It'll probably still be a minority & the military is WAAAAAAAY TOOOOO HUUUGE! The only way it would work is if the whole military was made up of these weirdos. However, the military, like the population, is a variety of people.

[mellenORL]

Let's see Nate Silver do a proper poll on these survey questions, and maybe then I'll worry, if his results are similar.

There is a lot of chronic whaaaa out there that Dems have the Whitehouse and Senate 2 terms in a row, and most of this is armchair bombastic bullshit from the conspiratards, but with every event lately being hyped up by A Jones and others, it is alarming to realize that his followers do in fact vote...and their numbers are increasing.

[QueenofHearts]

In which case, forgive me for not wanting to break out my afraid face, but 863 is quite frankly a shitty sample size for what was being considered.

Something along the lines of 2,000 people would have been an improvement.

...less then 1,000 people were sampled in this?  Yeah this is flawed from the get go.

Ironbite-10,000 would be a better sample size in regards to the US population.

The others beat me to it.  863 is NOTHING for a sample size, especially considering the US population.

I'm not going to make much of this. Where was this poll taken. Now, if the majority of the US population did the poll, that might be more accurate. It'll probably still be a minority & the military is WAAAAAAAY TOOOOO HUUUGE! The only way it would work is if the whole military was made up of these weirdos. However, the military, like the population, is a variety of people.

It was a nationwide poll, and 863 would be good for just under 3.4% margin of error according to the study itself. Not saying that the methodology was perfect, but a sample size of 2000 would only reduce the margin of error from 3.4% to about 2.3%. While that is more accurate, polling companies don't tend to go that far for ordinary polls because of costs.

[Cerim Treascair]

Queen, the US population is somewhere in the realm of 312 million.

The sample size equates to 0.0000027% of the entire country.  'Margin of error' my ass, when even local polls done on issues use a sample size of 1,000.

[Witchyjoshy]

It's a nationwide poll and it only got 863 results?

That's not even pathetic, that's outright amateur.

Sorry, Queen, but you just convinced me the poll is even more bullshit.

[Distind]

Statistics is the art of bullshit. But Queen's right based on typical assumptions.

Hence why there's little reason to listen to any given poll. Disecting their wording is often far more interesting than their results anyway.

[QueenofHearts]

Statistics is the art of bullshit.

I wouldn't necessarily go that far. Statistics and polling can provide very accurate data and useful information. However, you're right, that the individual wording of a poll can greatly affect how people feel. So while some statistics may be bullshit, honest statisticians, like honest lawyers , try their best for accuracy.

Which leads me back to the point at hand, Magus & Cerim, I'm not saying the question asked was perfectly, just that attacking it on sample size is a flimsy at best argument. As a political science major who has had to deal with more statistics than you could shake a stick at, anything with a sample size over 600 (4% margin of error) is generally not attacked on that ground. The study said 29% of respondants believed armed revolution necessary. With a margin of error at 3.4, that would mean that 29% could be anywhere from 25.6%-32.4% of Americans feel that way. All sampling a larger size of people would do would reduce the margin of error, and sampling 2,400 people (or 0.0000077% of the population) would only reduce that margin to 2%. I'm not looking too much into the criticism of the question or how it was asked. I'm just saying that attacking the study on the grounds of sample size is a weak criticism to anyone who knows basic statistics.

To be honest, I felt Magus' criticism that the underlying reason for the revolution not being clarified (a la ambiguity) was a stronger criticism of the study than sample size.

[Witchyjoshy]

The problem is that it also depends on how random the sampling was.  How many people were in the south?  The midwest?   In New England?  And so forth.

Certain areas of America have different tendencies towards different attitudes.

5 people in Texas, for instance, are more likely to be conservative than 5 people in New York City.

Considering how large the country is, 863 results feels like it would have a much larger margin of error than 3.4%, simply because we're talking about proportions here.

The larger the number, the more likely it is to be representative of a group.

As it stands, though, a nationwide poll having a smaller sample size than a local poll reeks to me of bad planning anyways.  And bad planning in sample size could easily be demonstrative of bad planning in other areas.

In short I have many problems with them, and the sample size is a big red flag marking it all.  While I'm sure honest statisticians try their best to be honest, I have nothing showing evidence that the people who ran this poll are honest statisticians.

[QueenofHearts]

The problem is that it also depends on how random the sampling was.  How many people were in the south?  The midwest?   In New England?  And so forth.

Certain areas of America have different tendencies towards different attitudes.

5 people in Texas, for instance, are more likely to be conservative than 5 people in New York City.

They include that in the study, they list the people by census demographics at the bottom. This actually hurts your case. The south is under-represented (study 32%/Census 37.1), the west and north east being over-represented (Study 27 & 20%/Census 23.3 & 17.9, respectively). That aside, those deviations are not so egregious as to intentionally skew the data. Likewise, if you read their methodology, you would see that they called random landline phones.

Considering how large the country is, 863 results feels like it would have a much larger margin of error than 3.4%, simply because we're talking about proportions here.

I'm just gonna leave this here. Wikipedia can explain this far better than I care to.

The larger the number, the more likely it is to be representative of a group.

As it stands, though, a nationwide poll having a smaller sample size than a local poll reeks to me of bad planning anyways.  And bad planning in sample size could easily be demonstrative of bad planning in other areas.

In short I have many problems with them, and the sample size is a big red flag marking it all.  While I'm sure honest statisticians try their best to be honest, I have nothing showing evidence that the people who ran this poll are honest statisticians.

This is wharrgarbl. If you understood how confidence intervals and sampling worked you would understand that this is a baseless argument as well. If one asks a random number of people, they can extrapolate with confidence how the larger section of people feel. If they ask 1000 Virginians, they can say with a degree of certainty how Virginians feel about an issue, not necessarily Americans, but Virginians. If they ask 1000 Americans how they feel on an issue, they can do the same, and again, not necessarily say how Virginians feel on the issue. Just because some statewide polls ask 1000 people isn't a fair criticism, it just means the margin of error for that state is lower than it is for this study. I.E. you don't need to survey a certain proportion of the populace in polls to get an accurate answer.

Again, I'm focusing on the sample size criticism. If they asked 2400 people with their same methodology, question, etc, then they could've come to a far different result. That, however, is highly unlikely as there would only be about a 5% chance it would fall outside the margin of error, with most that did being closer to 25 & 33% than not. What realistically would've happened is the margin of error would drop & the 29% that they found would fluctuate between 25.6% & 32.4%. Thus, again, if you want to criticize the study, you're focusing on the wrong part.

[Sleepy]

Yeah, they should've definitely surveyed more people. I don't think the national average would be quite that high, but given the several semi-recent disasters that are on everyone's mind, coupled with the bad economy we've had for several years, people are really on edge about everything.

[Witchyjoshy]

This is wharrgarbl.

And this is where I decide to discontinue this debate.  Good day, ma'am.