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A Gun Battle Is Over: Truth Wins [Bellesiles]
The Wall Street Journal (print edition) ^ | November 1, 2002 | Kimberley A. Strassel

Posted on 11/02/2002 10:26:16 AM PST by spald

A Gun Battle Is Over: Truth Wins

In March 2000, 47 law professors and historians sent a stiff letter to Charlton Heston, president of the National Rifle Association. They told him "the Second Amendment permits broad and intensive regulation of firearms" and urged him to move beyond such trifles as constitutional guarantees to "the real issue" -just how much.regulation is needed to "prevent the killings and violence that plague our country today."

This letter takes on new meaning now, as we consider the past 18 months of controversy over Michael Bellesiles's "Arming America." That award-winning book, published by Knopf in 2000, purported to show that guns were a rarity in early America, which would have had broad implications for the Second Amendment's his historical context.

Within months of the book's appearance, however, a battle raged over Mr. Bellesiles's scholarship. It ended last week when a distinguished panel of scholars declared the work "unprofessional and misleading," and Mr. Bellesiles resigned from Emory University.

From the start, the Bellesiles battle was portrayed as the usual one - between right-wing gun owners and left-wing gun regulators. But to look at" Arming America" that way is to miss the real divide.

Yes, the spokesmen for the opposing interest groupS threw themselves into the fray. But soon the real split became one within academia. It pitted those who cared about scholarly integrity against those who were happy to ignore, or promote, Mr. Bellesiles's shoddy, perhaps fraudulent, work if it helped their political agenda.

Which gets us back to the letter sent to the NRA before" Arming America" was published. Mr. Bellesiles (himself a signatory) always claimed that his book wasn't political. But the letter suggests otherwise. Clearly his fellow scholars on the left saw" Arming America" as the best thing to happen to their cause in years.

At least three signerS would write glowing reviews of "Arming America." Five others would pen laudatory blurbs for its jacket, with one of them, Michael Zuckerman of the University of Pennsylvania, gleefully describing Mr. Bellesiles as the "NRA'S worst nightmare." Yet another would sit on the committee that gave Mr. Bellesiles the prestigious Bancroft Prize.

Even as this troop was singing his praises, another group of scholars - Jim Lindgren of Northwestern, Gloria Main of the University of Colorado, Randolph Roth of Ohio State, Robert Churchill of the University of Hartford, and many more-were scratching their heads. None had a particular stake in the gun-control debate, but all were experts in the historical detail on which Mr. Bellesiles based his research-probate records, militia counts, homicide rates. They noted many things amiss in" Arming America" - facts, not interpretations.

These scholars produced a mountain of evidence showing the book to be irredeemably flawed. Their reward for taking scholarship seriously was to be largely ignored, or even chastised, by many of those Second Amendment scholars who so desperately wanted Mr. Bellesiles's work to be right.

Mr. Zuckerman was quoted in the Nation just this month saying that "the critics are casting about for a way to discredit" Mr. Bellesiles. Mary Beth Norton of Cornell (a letter signer) claimed in the same piece that Mr. Bellesiles's work was "just as plausible" as that of his critics. When I called to ask what she thought of the panel's findings, she said she had "no time to have this conversation."

When the William & Mary Quarterly asked four scholars to evaluate "Arming America," three wrote damning reviews. The fourth, Stanford's Jack Rakove (who also signed the letter to the NRA), chose to look not at the book's accuracy but at what the thesis meant for the Second Amendment. In a phone interview, he still maintains that the book, while flawed, "raises interesting questions." Other scholars disappeared. Garry Wills, a letter signer who wrote a glowing review of" Arming America" for the New York Times Book Review, has yet to publicly set the record straight. Ditto Carl T. Bogus (another signer) who wrote two laudatory reviews.

There are, of course, some exceptions. One of the signers of the letter, Stanley Katz of Princeton, ultimately sat on the panel that rendered its judgment last week. Another, Saul Cornell at Ohio State, told me that "the committee did a thorough job. Michael has had a chance to respond, and their criticism is very persuasive."

I know that others voiced their support for getting to the bottom of the affair - who put professional integrity above personal cause. Let's hope we will hear from them soon, now that the facts are in. Maybe they can all sign another letter, this time condemning the "NRA's nightmare" not the NRA.


TOPICS: Crime/Corruption; Culture/Society; Front Page News; US: Georgia
KEYWORDS: bellesiles; emory
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Professional integrity versus political adgenda. A college professor is judged by his peers and resigns. His collegiate supports are still at large and should also be subjected to peer review over the matter.
1 posted on 11/02/2002 10:26:16 AM PST by spald
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To: spald
and many more-were scratching their heads.

Including Hanna Gray, University of Chicago.
2 posted on 11/02/2002 10:28:55 AM PST by aruanan
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To: spald
"Integrity" is not the goal of American "Higher Education". "Authenticity" is the goal---by any means necessary.

But good, cooperative, tolerant little middle-class American parents will continue to work themselves into the grave so their offspring can benefit from the fruits of "authenticity".

Do Americans deserve everything they are going to get in the next quarter century?

Well, anyway, they're going to get it.....

3 posted on 11/02/2002 10:35:17 AM PST by LaBelleDameSansMerci
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Comment #4 Removed by Moderator

Comment #5 Removed by Moderator

To: spald
Also--

This is a big, fat lie: " A Gun Battle Is Over: Truth Wins...

Anyone who believes this is not a child, not an infant, not a fetus--barely even a zygote.

And a zygote who knows nothing about the ways and means of our Ruling Class, to boot...

6 posted on 11/02/2002 10:41:08 AM PST by LaBelleDameSansMerci
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To: LaBelleDameSansMerci
Well said.
7 posted on 11/02/2002 11:15:02 AM PST by Mr. Bungle
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To: spald
It is very important to remember the names of the dishonest academics who eagerly swallowed Besliles' lies, and to continually remind them of their willing disregard of the truth in order to advance their totalitarian politican aims. I suggest letters of complaint to the employers of every academic who participated in this fraud.
8 posted on 11/02/2002 11:53:03 AM PST by ozzymandus
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To: spald
From:

http://www.lcav.org/content/letternra.asp

An Open Letter to the NRA

March 27, 2000
Mr. Charlton Heston
President National Rifle Association of America
11250 Waples Mill Rd.
Fairfax, Virginia 22030

Dear Mr. Heston,
We are law professors and historians who have a deep interest in the Second Amendment and its implications for the regulation of guns and of gun ownership. Our politics run the gamut. But we are united on the vital importance of putting to rest any misperception that the Second Amendment prohibits a wide range of effective and reasonable firearms regulations.

There is room for debate about which firearms policies will best serve Americans. But the law is well-settled that the Second Amendment permits broad and intensive regulation of firearms, including laws that ban certain types of weapons, require safety devices on others, mandate registration and licensing and otherwise impose strict regulatory oversight of the firearms industry. These and similar regulations are fully consistent with the Second Amendment.

The Second Amendment – quoted in full – states that “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed.” The United States Supreme Court and every federal appellate court to consider the issue have held that the Second Amendment permits a wide range of reasonable gun control laws. And although academic views differ regarding whether the Second Amendment does more than protect the state militia from being disarmed by federal law, we all agree that the Amendment plainly permits reasonable firearms regulations including those set forth above.

The National Rifle Association’s repeated suggestions that the Second Amendment somehow stands in the way of effective and reasonable regulation of guns and gun ownership is a distortion of legal precedent and a disservice to all Americans, the great majority of whom support thoughtful firearms policies. The issue at hand transcends the liberal/conservative divide: prominent conservatives like the late Chief Justice Warren Burger and the late Solicitor General Erwin Griswold allied themselves against the NRA’s overbroad reading of the Second Amendment. Moreover, as this letter makes clear, it is false and misleading for the NRA to cite any of us or our scholarship as authority for the notion that the Second Amendment prohibits reasonable regulation of the manufacture, transfer, ownership and possession of guns.

We encourage you and your supporters to focus on the real issue facing our country – and it isn’t the Second Amendment. The central issue on which we all should focus is what sort of firearms legislation and policies will best prevent the killings and violence that plague our country today.

Sincerely,
(see attached list of endorsers)

cc: Wayne LaPierre, NRA Executive Vice-President

Academic Endorsers of the Letter to Charlton Heston Regarding the Second Amendment:

1. Akhil Reed Amar
Southmayd Professor of Law
Yale Law School

2. Edward Ayers
Hugh P. Kelly Professor of History
University of Virginia

3. Michael Bellesiles
Professor of History
Emory University

4. Carl T. Bogus
Professor of Law
Roger Williams University Law School

5. Jeff Brand
Professor of Law
University of San Francisco School of Law

6. John L. Brooke
Stern Professor of American History
Tufts University

7. Edwin G. Burrows
Professor of History
Brooklyn College

8. Richard M. Buxbaum
Professor of Law
Boalt Hall School of Law

9. Andrew Cayton
Professor of History
Miami University

10. Erwin Chemerinsky
Sydney M. Irmas Professor of Public Interest Law, Legal Ethics and Political Science
University of Southern California Law School

11. Saul Cornell
Associate Professor of History
Ohio State University

12. Edward Countryman
University Distinguished Professor
Southern Methodist University

13. Michael C. Dorf
Professor of Law
Columbia University

14. Norman Dorsen
Stokes Professor of Law
New York University School of Law

15. David R. Dow
George Butler Research Professor of Law
University of Houston Law Center

16. Robert R. Dykstra
Professor of History and Public Policy
State University of New York (SUNY) Albany

17. Susan Estrich
Robert Kingsley Professor of Law and Political Science
University of Southern California Law School

18. Heidi Feldman
Associate Professor of Law
Georgetown Professor of Law

19. Don Higginbotham
Dowd Professor of History
University of North Carolina

20. Peter Hoffer
Research Professor of History
University of Georgia

21. N.E.H. Hull
Distinguished Professor of Law and History
Rutgers University, Camden

22. Nancy Isenberg
Associate Professor of History
University of Northern Iowa

23. Yale Kamisar
Clarence Darrow Distinguished University Professor
University of Michigan Law School

24. Michael Kammen
Professor of American History and Culture
Cornell University

25. Stanley Katz
Professor in Public and International Affairs
Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs

26. David M. Kennedy
Donald I. McLachlan Professor of History
Stanford University

27. Christopher Kutz
Associate Professor of Law
Boalt Hall School of Law

28. Jill Lepore
Associate Professor of History
Boston University

29. Jan Lewis
Professor of History
Rutgers University, Newark

30. Rory Little
Professor of Law
Hastings College of Law

31. Ronald Mann
Professor of Law
University of Michigan Law School

32. Mari Matsuda
Professor of Law
Georgetown University Law Center

33. Andrew J. McClurg
Nadine H. Baum Distinguished Professor of Law
University of Arkansas at Little Rock School of Law

34. Mary Beth Norton
Mary Donlon Professor of American History
Cornell University

35. Michael L. Perlin
Professor of Law
New York Law School

36. Jack Rakove
Coe Professor of History and American Studies
Stanford University

37. Peter M. Shane
Professor of Law
University of Pittsburgh School of Law

38. Billy Smith
Professor of History
Montana State University, Bozeman

39. Laurence H. Tribe
Ralph S. Tyler, Jr., Professor of Constitutional Law
Harvard Law School

40. Richard Uviller
Professor of Law
Columbia Law School

41. Charles D. Weisselberg
Professor of Law
Boalt Hall School of Law

42. Robin West
Professor of Law
Georgetown University Law Center

43. Welsh S. White
Professor of Law
University of Pittsburgh

44. William M. Wiecek
Conadon Professor of Public Law and Professor of History
Syracuse University College of Law

45. Gary Wills
Adjunct Professor of History
Northwestern University

46. David Yassky
Assistant Professor of Law
Brooklyn Law School

47. Michael Zuckerman
Professor of History
University of Pennsylvania


Note: Institutions are listed for identification purposes only.




9 posted on 11/02/2002 12:02:40 PM PST by SteveH
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To: LaBelleDameSansMerci
That book is still out there and 20 years from now, assuming we still have the right to 'keep and bear arms', some college professor(s) will be using that book to fill young heads with the lies and the kids won't know the difference.

Or somewhere on a future place for the exchange of ideas, such as FR, someone knowingly or unknowingly will reproduce those words as gospel - much as we see here sometimes.

10 posted on 11/02/2002 12:08:38 PM PST by nanny
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To: glock rocks
1st Freedom Ping!
11 posted on 11/02/2002 12:16:12 PM PST by Madcelt
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To: LaBelleDameSansMerci
But good, cooperative, tolerant little middle-class American parents will continue to work themselves into the grave so their offspring can benefit from the fruits of "authenticity".

Daddy and Mommy keep funding the communist professors at our universities. Fools fund their enemies. Cut off their money and the commies would quickly wither on the vine.

Do Americans deserve everything they are going to get in the next quarter century?

Yes, they do. Americans have made political and moral choices for which there are serious consequences. There is none so blind as someone who will not see.

12 posted on 11/02/2002 12:18:27 PM PST by NoControllingLegalAuthority
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To: spald
If Bellesiles had specialized his "research" in the crap history profs typically do - say, the history of corsetmaking in New York State - he'd be damn lucky to have gotten any book published at all by his current age, much less a mass-market one.

Had he specialized in an uncontroversial field not trendy with the far Left - like most history Ph.D.s do - he probably never would have even gotten a tenure-track faculty job in the glutted job market as of when he was hired.

He benefited enormously from the politicization of his specialty. Would any book he wrote have gotten free "mainstream" media publicity had it been about the history of corsetmaking in New York State? Would he have avoided firing long ago when the fraudulence of his "research" was so obvious from Day One? Would the "mainstream" media stayed so sycophantic so long had it not been for the trendy-with-the-Left specialty of his?

Scandals of antigun activists - including debunking of Michael Bellesiles!

13 posted on 11/02/2002 12:19:15 PM PST by glc1173@aol.com
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To: spald
bump
14 posted on 11/02/2002 12:20:15 PM PST by GOPJ
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To: spald
Michael Bellesiles has been a big benefit to upholding the 2nd Amendment. He didn't intended to expose and discredit gun-control academics. Still, that's what his efforts set in motion.
15 posted on 11/02/2002 1:34:06 PM PST by Zon
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To: Zon
They do not accept defeat...

They do not accept compromise...

They do not accept honesty...

They do not accept academic integrity...

They do not accept integrity...

They can only be destroyed. Let us pray that we need only destroy them politically.
16 posted on 11/02/2002 2:05:47 PM PST by Maelstrom
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To: spald
The Second Amendment...
America's Original Homeland Security !!

Stop the attacks on our God given Rights by the extreme wacko left-wing anti-gun-nazis' !!

The Right Of The People To Keep And Bear Arms Shall Not Be Infringed !!

An Armed Citizen, Is A Safe Citizen !!

Guns Save Lives !!

No Guns, No Rights !!

Freedom Is Worth Fighting For !!

Molon Labe !!

FMCDH !!

17 posted on 11/02/2002 2:48:31 PM PST by blackie
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To: SteveH
Note: Institutions are listed for identification purposes only.

That's OK. That's all we are going to use them for. ; )

18 posted on 11/02/2002 2:56:46 PM PST by TigersEye
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To: spald
47 law professors and historians + broad and intensive regulation = shall not be infringed.

Does not compute you lying sonsabitches!

19 posted on 11/02/2002 3:02:28 PM PST by BikerTrash
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To: Zon
He didn't intended to expose and discredit gun-control academics. Still, that's what his efforts set in motion.

Yes indeedy! It was the best effort ever made by gun-control advocates and it has now proved to be nothing but a cart load of horse manure.

20 posted on 11/02/2002 3:08:29 PM PST by TigersEye
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