Anti-Gunners Fabricate Studies To Support Their Philosophy
October 1, 2006
by Joseph P. Tartaro
Executive Editor
There is an old saying that “figures don’t lie, but liars can figure.”
No better proofs of this saying can be found than the literature conjured up in what purport to be anti-gun think tanks or among academics who share the anti-gunners philosophy. The Brady Campaign and the Violence Policy Center are always touting studies or reports, usually funded by those groups or the same foundations that underwrite most of the anti-gun camp.
A few of those studies were flogged around the media and the Internet in September following a Summer in which another collegiate study reveals once again that men are sexually turned on by handguns. The latter thesis is one that is so old it needs some of the stuff with which the spammers clog up your e-mail address.
The main principal of these questionable studies and reports is to fabricate a result that supports a particular view and then breathlessly announce it to the public through the media and selected websites.
Such was the case with a “study” by CeaseFire Maryland announced on Sept. 6 which claimed that “one semi-automatic assault rifle was traced to a Maryland crime every 48 hours.
“The data, from the Federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms & Explosives (ATF) show that 789 assault rifles were traced to crime in Maryland from Jan. 2, 1998 to Dec. 31, 2001, but the actual number of assault weapons traced to crime in the state is likely to be higher,” a Ceasefire Maryland press release announced somewhat confusingly.
Legislative Agenda
Of course, the study was immediately linked to a legislative agenda.
“With assault weapons being traced to crime in Maryland an average of every 48 hours, more needs to be done to get these guns off Maryland streets and to help law enforcement keep our communities safe,” said Lisa Delity, president of CeaseFire Maryland Inc.
The press release went on to inform us that Delity’s brother, FBI Special Agent Mike Miller, “was gunned down with an assault weapon at Washington, DC, police headquarters in November 1994.”
The report, it was explained, was authored by CeaseFire Maryland Inc. board member Sue Peschin, who identified firearms that had certain common military calibers then narrowed the list by make and model. Entries with unknown makes and models were deleted. Finally, with the exception of the M1 Carbine, only those firearms that would be banned in Maryland under proposed assault weapons legislation from the 2006 legislative session were kept on the list. Therefore, the current data does not capture every assault weapon. CeaseFire Maryland also didn’t mention that not all guns traced by the ATF are necessarily linked to violent crimes, a problem that always occurs when the anti-gunners attempt to manipulate government data.
“According to the tracing data,” the anti-gun organization’s report continued, “the most common assault rifles traced to crime by make and model include: 21 Colt AR-15s; 46 USA Military Surplus M1 Carbines; 55 Ruger Mini 14s; 92 Hi-Point 9mm carbines; and 294 North China Industries SKS variants.”
The report was released outside Valley Guns, a store whose federal firearms license was recently revoked. According to Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence President Paul Helmke, the store was chosen as the location for the report’s announcement because, “its proprietor represents what’s wrong with our gun laws.”
But press releases and media events are not the only way to promote anti-gun research. Books are important because they lend gravitas to the anti-gun research.
And in September, a new book by Saul Cornell, a professor of history at Ohio State University, that suggests “gun control is as American as venison pie” also made its public debut. The book is entitled A Well-Regulated Militia: The Founding Fathers and the Origins of Gun Control in America.
If you had any doubts about the direction that Cornell’s book takes, here’s a bit of the flackery that appeared in September.
“Cornell’s book examines the Founding Fathers’ concerns about the role of guns in the militia and follows the twists and turns of the competing ideologies about guns through the 19th century and beyond. Cornell’s critically acclaimed book is a must-read for anyone interested in the history of guns in America and the so-called ‘gun rights’ movement.”
Note that the publicist uses the term so-called “gun rights” movement, suggesting that no such rights exist, a position currently being flogged around the United Nations.
Cornell is also the author of The Other Founders: Anti-Federalism and the Dissenting Tradition in America, 1788-1828, and Whose Right to Bear Arms Did the Second Amendment Protect?
Suicides
Speaking of the United Nations where the global gun control crowd hangs out, a new study was also released in September by the World Health Organization (WHO), an arm of the UN. This time, the researchers have taken a different tack. Instead of focusing on crimes of violence, they have turned to suicides, claiming that more people die from suicide than wars and murders. That’s a pretty big claim and is no more quantified and reproducible than the anti-gun claim that 1,000 people across the world die every day because of guns.
“More people kill themselves each year than die from wars and murders combined, but most suicides could be prevented,” according to two international suicide experts quoted in a report from SwissInfo.
The news comes as the Geneva-based WHO marks World Suicide Prevention Day in September and amid a debate in Switzerland on the high number of gun suicides.
Some 20 million to 60 million people try to kill themselves each year, but only about a million of them succeed, said Dr. Jose Manoel Bertolote, a mental health official at WHO.
The ones who do end their lives “are tragic situations where help could have been provided,” said Brian Mishara, president of the International Association for Suicide Prevention (IASP) in Gondrin, France.
Suicide rates could be reduced if countries would limit access to pesticides, guns and medication and do a better job of treating people with depression, alcoholism and schizophrenia, Mishara said.
About a third of all suicides around the world are caused by pesticides, said Bertolote.
Dentists, veterinarians and doctors are particularly at risk for suicide. Not because of their high stress professions but because they have access to lethal chemicals and know how to handle them, Bertolote said.
Those who lose a job abruptly are more likely to kill themselves than people living in poor social conditions for long periods, he said.
Also, people living in countries where suicide is illegal such as Singapore, Lebanon and India are less likely to seek help if they have suicidal thoughts, for fear the government may punish them, Mishara said.
“Those laws don’t appear to have a dissuasive effect, but rather make it more difficult for people to come forth and get help,” he said.
Swiss Gun Debate
Those working to reduce the number of suicides have particular challenges in Switzerland, the news report claimed.
Researchers at Zurich University published a study (Yes, another study) at the end of August showing that Switzerland and the United States have the highest rates in the world of suicide involving guns.
According to the study, published in the American Journal of Public Health, every day one person in Switzerland commits suicide with a firearm, usually a military weapon.
The researchers claimed that tighter gun laws would lead to fewer suicides involving firearms in Switzerland.
Following the study, Swiss Defense Minister Samuel Schmid rejected calls for weapons to be kept in military storage to reduce Switzerland’s high rate of suicide by firearms, saying family tragedies and suicides were not valid reasons to stop soldiers from keeping their army weapons at home.
Apparently Schmid doesn’t assign much weight to studies that have tainted origins.
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