Polling is important to lawmakers.

While we often accuse some legislators of being out of touch, the truth is that many are. It’s not difficult to become out of touch, either. If you’re an average of the five people you spend the most time around, how are you not going to get out of touch when you’re primarily around other politicians hundreds or thousands of miles from home?

So polling helps keep them grounded a bit. It tells them what’s happening with the people of a given state or nation.

But like so many other things, it’s “garbage in garbage out.” If you ask the wrong questions, you’ll get the wrong answers, and a recent poll in Michigan illustrates this point perfectly.

Following a mass shooting at Michigan State University which killed three students, all from the Detroit area, and injured five others, members of the Free Press staff conducted a survey of Michigan’s lawmakers to gauge their support for three policy measures that have previously been introduced, but failed to advance out of the state’s Legislature.

The survey, in which all 148 of Michigan’s representatives and senators were contacted multiple times via multiple methods, asked three main questions:

• Do you support the concept of a red flag law, which would allow law enforcement to temporarily take away guns from those a court deems poses a danger to themselves or others?
• Do you support the concept of a safe storage law, which would create penalties for those who fail to lock up their guns at home to keep guns out of the hands of minors?
• Do you support the concept of universal background checks, which would require those who want to buy guns to undergo a background check?

Democrats in the Senate have since introduced a package of bills, which center around instituting “red flag” laws (sometimes called extreme risk protection orders), safe storage laws and universal background checks in Michigan. Similar legislation is expected in the House soon.

Yet take a look at the questions for just a moment.

We’re going to break them down one by one here and discuss some of the issues with these questions.

• Do you support the concept of a red flag law, which would allow law enforcement to temporarily take away guns from those a court deems poses a danger to themselves or others?

Most people will hear this and not think too deeply about it. The idea of the courts taking guns from dangerous people isn’t going to rankle many.

What the question fails to convey is that the court makes this determination without ever talking to the individual in question. One party simply claims they’re dangerous and if they’re convincing enough, the other party loses their guns.

Yes, it’s only temporary, but does that somehow make it better? Someone loses their right to keep and bear arms without any actual due process of law.

Next…

• Do you support the concept of a safe storage law, which would create penalties for those who fail to lock up their guns at home to keep guns out of the hands of minors?

This is another that looks pretty basic.

What it doesn’t account for is literally any nuance at all. Further, it doesn’t mention just who is likely to be punished and how the authorities would become alerted that someone failed to secure their guns.

For example, the way it’s discovered many times is when someone’s child has accidentally killed themself. At this point, the gun owner is likely suffering already. They’re putting themselves through the proverbial ringer.

Do we really need to punish these parents more?

Finally, we have this perpetual winner:

• Do you support the concept of universal background checks, which would require those who want to buy guns to undergo a background check?

The problem is that many will hear this question and may well assume they’re talking about traditional gun sales, which already require a background check. They don’t realize it may impact their ability to sell a gun to a family member or lifelong friend.

I will give this polling firm credit, though. They actually mention universal background checks, which might minimize this a bit.

Still, the problem with polling has always been what kind of questions you ask in the first place. You can manipulate data easily enough by asking questions in a certain way. It’s why any report of polling that doesn’t include the questions should be dismissed out of hand.

This isn’t much better than the worst I’ve seen.

Further, none of it bothers to note that literally none of this would have prevented the shooting at Michigan State, the pretext for this anti-gun push.

But hey, what do you expect in this day and age, honest journalism?