There's a teensy bit of data massaging to make the approval rating appear lower... in my opinion of course.
The respondents were asked to rank "acceptability of the killers actions" on a scale of 1 to 5.
Assumin'the average "young voter" views gunning strangers down as:
[1.very unfavorable]
(You would, if asked about murder, say it was bad As a rule. right? I would too. Ya know, unless it was justified.)
Looking at it that way, the same data looks a lot different suddenly.
33% young voters still think the killer is completely unjustified.
7% think there was some justification
19% are undecided if the CEO deserved to die for what he did
24% think the killer was mostly justified... But have reservations
17% believe he was 100% in the right
I got a little free with the interpretations but you get the idea, You could decide to frame the data this way too. there's a saying: statistics don't lie but statisticians do. Here's my 100% true alternate title using the data but presented with the story I want to tell:
67% of Young Voters at Least Partly Approve of Killers Actions
I'm of two minds about it. Half the time, I want to build a statue of Luigi
The other half of the time, I'm feeling the Tolkien quote, "many that live deserve death, and many that die deserve life. Will you give it to them?"
In other words, at no point do I feel that Brian Robert Thompson didn't objectively deserve to die. He is objectively doing more good for the world as worm food than he did as a living man. My only question is on the ethics of anyone actually killing him. On one hand, no one should have a right to make that call on their own. On the other, it's not like he was ever going to face justice any other way.
I wonder if this dilemma is reflected in this poll. You can believe that killing the CEO was unacceptable, while also believing he absolutely deserved it.