Posted on 08/27/2002 8:06:05 PM PDT by Lizard_King
Capitol Hill (CNSNews.com) - The author of a controversial book, which claims there was no widespread ownership of firearms by U.S. citizens prior to the Civil War, has been removed from his teaching position at Emory University, the school announced Thursday.
"Professor Michael Bellesiles will be on paid leave from his teaching duties at Emory University during the fall semester," Emory said in a written statement acknowledging that a six-month investigation into allegations of research fraud "is continuing."
Bellesiles has been under fire almost since the first copy of his book "Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture," rolled off the press.
The main thesis of the work is that, prior to the Civil War, "the majority of American men did not care about guns. They were indifferent to owning guns, and they had no apparent interest in learning how to use them."
"The national passion for gun ownership did not begin in America's frontier days," claimed a May 2, 2001, Emory University press release promoting the book. "Through sophisticated research, Bellesiles has put together probate reports on what people owned in the 18th and early 19th centuries, government surveys of gun ownership, and records of the number of guns produced in America and imported from abroad.
"Contrary to the romantic idea that the frontiersman relied upon his weapon, Bellesiles establishes the fact that up until 1850, fewer than 10 percent of Americans owned guns, and half of those weapons were not functioning," the document claimed.
But Joyce Lee Malcolm, a professor of history at Bentley College and a senior fellow in the MIT Security Studies Program, wrote in a University of Texas Law Review article shortly after the release of the book that "Arming America's" claims don't stand up to scrutiny.
"Few historians have made such extravagant claims for their monographs nor had them accepted so uncritically as has Michael Bellesiles," she wrote. "In virtually every aspect of his argument, Bellesiles' claims are not supported by his sources and are at odds with those he has chosen to ignore or dismiss.
"This is not the occasional, unintentional error of fact or difference in emphasis," Malcolm continued. "He has presented a skewed and distorted selection of the records, misquoted contemporary statements and statutes, provided inaccurate information, and erroneous accounts of the particular probate collections he specifically cites."
The primary evidence Bellesiles cites as "proof" for the lack of firearms comes from more than 11,000 probate inventories from 1765 through 1859. In one such sampling of 186 inventories from Providence, R.I., Bellesiles claimed that only 48 percent mentioned guns.
"If one could imagine these 186 men as a militia company," Bellesiles wrote, "half would be unarmed and a third armed with guns too old for service. And yet they would have been one of the best-armed forces of their time."
James Lindgren, a Northwestern University law professor, examined those same inventories.
"Virtually everything Bellesiles said about these records was false," Lindgren argued.
In fact, not 48 percent, but 62 percent mentioned guns, of which only 9 percent were described as "old," not the 33 percent Bellesiles claimed. Lindgren also looked at rural areas and compared the numbers of guns recorded to the other types of property listed. He found more guns than knives, books, and even Bibles.
Erich Pratt, communications director for Gun Owners of America, is pleased by the university's action.
"Much of the research by anti-gunners has been very shoddy," he said, noting anti-gun researchers such as James Wright and Gary Kleck who became pro-gun only after completing their research and examining the resulting evidence.
"This is certainly a good first step for the university," Pratt said. "It's been a long time coming."
Emory University remarked that its probe will differ, in one respect, to most internal investigations into allegations of academic misconduct against college professors.
"Professor Bellesiles and the university have agreed that the results of the university's inquiry will be made public when the inquiry is completed," the university's statement said.
Pratt said he is looking forward to that announcement.
"Certainly the university is going to have egg on its face because they've defended him so strongly throughout," Pratt concluded.
Calls to Emory University seeking comment from university officials and Michael Bellesiles on this story were not returned prior to it's filing for publication.
There are plenty of opportunities in sanitation or janitorial services.
I remember that. What a scream.
More from Larry Pratt at GOA --
It's not exactly the same as the excuse: "The dog ate my homework." But, it's close. And it is certainly one of the more bizarre happenings surrounding Michael A. Bellesiles' book Arming America. I'm alluding here to his claim that all the notes for his book got wet, a flood rendered most of them useless, and they were destroyed.
In our interview with Bellesiles at Columbia University (4/19/2001), he explained, testily: "Of course it's a true story. In the history building (Bowden Hall at Emory University), the plumbers were in there working on a Sunday and they did not reconnect the pipes. They turned the water back on and all my notes got wet." All the notes for his entire book? Yep. He says: "Most of them were useless and have been pulped. They were thrown away." A friend of Bellesiles', Law Professor Paul Finkelman of the University of Tulsa, says, in an email, that Bellesiles had "about 100,000 pages of notes" -- which is a lot of notes.
But, as is all too often the case, the way Bellesiles tells things does not appear to be the way events actually occurred. The Emory Report (May 8, 2000, Volume 52, No. 32), which is published by the administration of the University, says, in part: "On the evening of Sunday, April 2, a connector on a sprinkler main broke on the building's third floor. Contractors had been working on the plumbing. When the flow of the water was finally cut off about 25 minutes later, standing water was two inches deep in some places, and practically no part of Bowden Hall escaped completely dry."
Now, if a scholar at a university had all of his notes destroyed for a well-known book which took more than 10 years to write -- as Arming America did -- you'd think this would be big news and a lot of folks would know about such a disaster. But, we've been unable to confirm Belllesiles' story. In fact, we've found much evidence to contradict his claim.
For example, the previously mentioned Emory Report quotes Janice Mohlhenrich, preservation coordinator for Emory University, as saying of the Bowden Hall Flood: "We were able to look at things that professors thought were irretrievably lost, but we looked at them and said, 'Sure, we can fix this.'" In an interview, when asked about the extent of damage to Bellesiles' materials, Mohlhenrich said: "I don't know. I know that we brought a number of his things over to the preservation lab and dried them out for him."
Q: Did Bellesiles bring a lot of stuff to you?
A: "No, not a great deal."
In a story about the flood in the Emory student newspaper The Wheel, four professors were mentioned whose offices were in Bowden Hall. Bellesiles is not mentioned.
In an interview, Barney Gimbel, editor of The Wheel who wrote the story about the Bowden Hall flood, was asked: "Are you aware of any professors who had serious and major damage to any of their work?" He replied: "No.... It really wasn't that bad of a flood in all reality." He says he has never heard the story about all of Bellesiles' notes being destroyed. Indeed, he says that, at the time, he called Bellesiles but Bellesiles never returned his call. He adds, regarding Bellesiles: "[He's] not a very friendly person. I can say that because I had a class with him. He's a very snide guy. He's very full of himself. He's a prima donna."
History Professor Patrick Allitt, who also has an office in Bowden Hall, tells us no, he, too, never heard from Bellesiles or anybody else that all of Bellesiles' notes were destroyed.
Dr. Walter Adamson is head of the History Department at Emory. In an interview, he tells us that the only person he remembers as sustaining damage from the flood was Associate Professor Cynthia Patterson who had some photos of Greece destroyed. When asked if he was aware of Bellesiles saying that all of his notes for Arming America were destroyed?, he says: "No, I'm not aware of any damage that substantial." He adds that 100,000 pages of notes "sounds like more than anybody really accumulates." Dr. Adamson refers us to Rosalyn Page, the History Department's administrative assistant in charge of dealing with insurance claims filed by professors who had materials damaged in the Bowden Hall flood.
In an interview, Page -- who says that all insurance claims have come through her -- says: "We were very, very fortunate in that all of the contents [damaged] were all replaceable and repairable."
Q: "Do you know if any professors suffered any major damage to their works, to their notes?"
A: "Not that I know of. I assume if that was the case, you know, I would know."
Q: "Do you know Professor Bellesiles?"
A: "Yes, he's in our Department."
Q: "Did he make any kind of claim as as you know?"
A: "Yes, he had some materials that needed to be replaced."
Q: "Was it much damage?"
A: "No. Like I say, we were very fortunate. Most people didn't have a whole lot of things."
Q: "And you are thoroughly familiar with everyone who filed a claim and everybody's damage?"
A: "Right."
Q: "So, you know of no one in the History Department who suffered any damage to his work?"
A: "Right."
Q: "And you would know if such major damage was suffered by any professor?"
A: "Right."
Finally, David King is senior vice president of Disaster Services Incorporate, the firm who cleaned up and dried out Bowden Hall. He was first on the scene and went office-to-office to see the flood damage. In an interview, he tells us he'd "be shocked if anything was destroyed, to be honest with you." He agrees with preservation coordinator Mohlhenrich who says that most of what was damaged was saved.
Hmmmmm. "To be honest" with us, eh? Sounds like, from what we've been able to learn, that, once again, Michael A. Bellesiles hasn't been.
"Pulped Fiction:" Michael Bellesiles and His Yellow Note Pads
Probate records? Does anyone here thing that rural, non-upper-class, 18th century America bothered with probate to any significant degree? The only people with ACCESS to a probate judge would be urban dwellers, I would think, and of course they would have far less need for firearms than somebody on a frontier farm
I think the guy's dirty enough where the antigunners are afraid he will call into question the credibility of their entire case. As they should be - he does. Perhaps he's going to be the sleighrider thrown to the wolves to slow them down a bit...
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