Posted on 12/17/2012 11:28:55 AM PST by jazusamo
Must every tragic mass shooting bring out the shrill ignorance of "gun control" advocates?
The key fallacy of so-called gun control laws is that such laws do not in fact control guns. They simply disarm law-abiding citizens, while people bent on violence find firearms readily available.
If gun control zealots had any respect for facts, they would have discovered this long ago, because there have been too many factual studies over the years to leave any serious doubt about gun control laws being not merely futile but counterproductive.
Places and times with the strongest gun control laws have often been places and times with high murder rates. Washington, D.C., is a classic example, but just one among many.
When it comes to the rate of gun ownership, that is higher in rural areas than in urban areas, but the murder rate is higher in urban areas. The rate of gun ownership is higher among whites than among blacks, but the murder rate is higher among blacks. For the country as a whole, hand gun ownership doubled in the late 20th century, while the murder rate went down.
The few counter-examples offered by gun control zealots do not stand up under scrutiny. Perhaps their strongest talking point is that Britain has stronger gun control laws than the United States and lower murder rates.
But, if you look back through history, you will find that Britain has had a lower murder rate than the United States for more than two centuries— and, for most of that time, the British had no more stringent gun control laws than the United States. Indeed, neither country had stringent gun control for most of that time.
(Excerpt) Read more at creators.com ...
You rang? :-)
Yes that is the one.
Thanks for posting the info.
Thank you both, should have read further down.
Good points. And if we have learned anything in the Climate Change/Global Warming debate, feelings are all that matter. So heading into the next Ice Age, we are getting rid of our ability to cheaply generate heat. Why ? Because some idiots want to feel good before they freeze to death. Now we are looking into getting rid of guns, just before the Iranians let loose all their sleeper cells. Why ? Because some idiots want to feel good before they are shot down in a mall by an Islamic terrorist.
You’re only close. :-)
Great link.
Let enough innocent people get shot up by a lunatic and facts, logic, liberty, the Constitution - none of it will matter to most Americans. After the last election I’m convinced of this. IMO most Americans don’t really want liberty- they want someone (usually the government) to say the problem is fixed so they can get back to watching TV.
Thanks Dr Sowell for a logical look at the “problem”.
http://www.upi.com/Odd_News/2002/10/28/Prof-resigns-faulty-gun-research-cited/UPI-24671035825545/
Prof. resigns; faulty gun research cited
Published: Oct. 28, 2002 at 12:19 PM
By MELISSA SECKORA
WASHINGTON, Oct. 28 (UPI) -- Emory University has accepted the resignation of a history professor whose work on the use and ownership of firearms in early America has been widely criticized.
Emory Associate Vice President Jan Gleason announced Friday that Michael Bellesiles' resignation would be effective Dec. 31. Bellesiles is the author of "Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture," an award-winning book that appeared to confirm that the Second Amendment protects only a collective right to bear arms and that individual gun rights were unimportant to America's founders.
However, Emory released a 40-page indictment of Bellesiles' research composed by a committee of three historians as well as Bellesiles' 7-page response in which he denied any wrongdoing.
The basic thesis of "Arming America" is there were very few guns in early America and that most of the guns that did exist were old and broken. Bellesiles published an article on the subject in 1996 in the Journal of American History -- a piece that was named "Best Article of the Year" by the Organization of American Historians. The book won the 2001 Bancroft Prize, the most-prestigious prize in American-history writing. Columbia is investigating the possibility of revoking the prize.
But over the past year, critics of "Arming America" claimed that Bellesiles miscounted, misinterpreted and made up substantial portions of the information in the book.
The critics said Bellesiles' work focused on nonexistent probate records that he said he read in San Francisco and in Providence, R.I. However, the San Francisco records were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and fire, and many of the Providence documents that Bellesiles says he read apparently never existed. Bellesiles has also said that his research notes were destroyed in a flood in his campus office, a story that people at Emory familiar with the flood have cast doubt on.
After questions were raised in the media and in faculty workshops at Columbia, Yale, and other major universities, Emory's dean, Robert A. Paul, convened a panel of historians to investigate the charges. The committee was led by Stanley N. Katz of Princeton and included Hanna H. Gray, a former president of the University of Chicago; and Laurel Thatcher Ulrich of Harvard.
The committee's investigation focused on Bellesiles' use of probate records. Of particular interest was a key table on which the author's thesis is grounded. The committee's report stated: "Evaluating Table One is an exercise in frustration because it is almost impossible to tell where Bellesiles got his information. His source note lists the names of 40 counties, but supplies no indication of the exact records used or their distribution over time. After reviewing his skimpy documentation, we had the same question as (one reviewer) Gloria Main: 'Did no editors or referees ever ask that he supply this basic information?' ... The best that can be said about his work with the probate and militia records is that he is guilty of unprofessional and misleading work."
The committee also agreed with James Lindgren, a law professor at Northwestern University, that the scandal could have been avoided with "more conventional editing" by The Journal of American History, and with Ohio State historian Randolph Roth, who determined that Bellesiles' numbers were "mathematically improbable or impossible."
Additionally, the committee found that "no one has been able to replicate Bellesiles' results (on the low percentage of guns) for the places or dates he lists"; that he conflated wills and inventories, which "greatly reduced the (reported) percentage of guns in estates"; he took a "casual approach" to gathering data; "(raised) doubts about his veracity" in claiming to have worked with records in California; and raised questions about his use of microfilm at the National Archives Record Center in East Point, Ga.
Committee members also called implausible Bellesiles' claim that false data on his Web site was put there by a hacker and his disavowal of e-mail messages that he wrote to researchers, giving the wrong location for almost all of his probate research.
In a statement, Bellesiles said: "All that remains in question are the few paragraphs and table on probate materials. On those paragraphs, Emory's committee of inquiry found no evidence of fabrication, though they do not charge evasion."
"I have never fabricated evidence of any kind nor knowingly evaded my responsibilities as a scholar," he wrote. "I have never consciously misrepresented any data or evidence. ... I will continue to research and report on the probate materials while also working on my next book, but cannot continue to teach in what I feel is a hostile environment."
and Dr. Steele
I love this man. God bless him.
He was caught simply making up facts and had to recant his remarks and I think may have even lost his job.
Could that have been Michael Bellisles? His Arming America "study" was a sick joke and I seem to recall him resigning/being fired over it.
Thank you for the ping.
They don’t call them the 9th Circus for nothing.
LOL! Isn't that the truth.
Every time I see something about the 9th Circus I'm reminded of Stephen Reinhardt, arguably the most liberal judge on the appeals court and that's saying something for the 9th.
use
At least they’re the most overturned court as well. Some of our judges still have a few brain cells left.
This president should get not so much as a gun control discussion in Congress until he fully explains Fast and Furious.
Yes, that was the fraudster. His figures were almost wholly gundecked -- and no doubt he felt that gundecking his data was A-OK for the reason that FRiend ArGee pointed out above: He felt that what he was doing was for the good, and therefore all right, and that he had a positive duty as a liberal to help people come into the safe harbor of liberal fantasy so they could feel virtuous and safe and righteous and smug.
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