The citizen control movement in the United States has operated on very simple premise for the past half-century: citizens must be lied to for their own good.

The lie most frequently repeated  by the citizen control movement today is that “90% of Americans support background checks,” a concept sold on the fiction that background checks aren’t conducted at gun shows.

But a funny thing happens when citizens are told the truth that background checks are conducted by gun dealers no matter where they operate according to new data released from the National Shooting Sports Foundation:

Only four out of ten Americans support so-called “universal background checks” at gun shows after being informed that the vast majority of firearms sales at these shows are transacted by licensed retailers that already conduct such checks through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) as required by federal law. The poll results stand in contrast to the vague claim often reported in the media and attributed to gun control proponents without important contextual detail that 90 percent of Americans surveyed support “universal background checks.”

These findings were the among the results of a national scientific poll of more than 1,200 Americans conducted in November by McKeon & Associates and released today by the National Shooting Sports Foundation (NSSF), the trade association for the firearms and ammunition industry. The McKeon poll found that only 40 percent of respondents said that extension of “universal background checks” to private transactions at gun shows are necessary, while 53 percent said they are not necessary and 7% said they did not know.

This is in stark contrast to claims made by the media, citizen control groups, and “progressive” politicians that pushed for citizen disarmament, and yet failed in the national level despite claiming (a blatantly false) 90% level of support. We have to speculate that Republicans and Democrats in the Senate most have conducted polling of citizens using similar methodologies and found similar answers before voting down a series of gun control proposals mid-year.

Respondents were also against mandatory background checks of friends and family for firearms transfers (54%), and 70% were against mandating “smart gun” technologies that have consistently been technological failures.

Other results of the scientific polling conducted by McKeon & Associates reveals that Americans want state-level authorities to do a much better job submitting information to the FBI-run National Instant Criminal Background Check Systems (NICS) database.

“We commissioned this poll to help determine where Americans stood on the various aspects of how the NICS system actually works today,” said Larry G. Keane, NSSF senior vice president and general counsel. “When properly informed of relevant details, it turns out that only four out of ten, not nine out of ten Americans support so-called ‘universal background checks’ at gun shows or for firearms transfers. The poll also found that Americans want a National Instant Criminal Background Check System with a dependable and accurate database, which supports the goal of the FixNICS initiative we launched in 2013 and will continue in 2014.”