Gun research is a troubling field. It shouldn't be, but as we've seen, the studies the field produces are...questionable, at best. It doesn't help that this research is touted as unquestionable by those who wish to curtail our right to keep and bear arms. And by "curtail," what I mean is "eradicate."
But now, it seems, they've reached a new low in gun research. Not only can a study that blames the victims of theft for what happened, but it can get an award for it.
I'm old enough to remember when victim-blaming was common in sexual assault cases. I found it disgusting at the time and I was glad to see it fall out of favor. The problem is that victim-blaming is still accepted, just not for that particular crime.
It's fine to publish research blaming concealed carriers, for example, for being the victim of gun thefts.
And yes, getting an award for it.
Stephen Billings, an associate professor in finance at the Leeds School of Business at the University of Colorado, Boulder, recently won an award for his research, which blames law-abiding gun owners for crimes committed against them.
Billings’ research, published in 2023 and titled “Smoking Gun? Linking Gun Ownership to Neighborhood Crime,” recently won the Greenwald Family Award for Firearm Violence and Injury Prevention Research Excellence.
According to this research, “while concealed carry permit holders are typically law-abiding citizens, a surprising trend emerges: They are significantly more likely to have their firearms stolen,” said Billings. “Stolen firearms often fuel neighborhood crime,” he added.
“If you buy a gun and carry it legally, you’re not necessarily a higher target for crime, but once it’s stolen, it can end up in the hands of someone who is not authorized to possess it. And that gun could then be used to commit crimes,” said Billings. “If you look at the data, it’s clear that more guns in a neighborhood mean more opportunities for theft, and more stolen guns mean more chances for them to be used in violent crimes.”
In other words, if a law-abiding citizen owns a gun, it could be stolen. Therefore, the law-abiding citizen must be responsible for any time a criminal steals their firearms, right? Such is Billings’ illogical conclusion.
Although he says law-abiding gun owners are not a higher target for crime, the first line of his conclusion contradicts this as it reads: “results highlight that gun owners are 68% more likely to be crime victims and victimization often involves having a gun stolen.”
Incredibly, the next line reads, “There is no evidence that legal gun owners are committing crimes themselves and in anything, once a [concealed handgun permit] is issued the recipient appears to be more law abiding.”
So although law-abiding gun owners are even more law-abiding, they are the ones at fault for those who break the law? Billings’ research is backwards from the start and his suggested solutions only move further away from the mark.
Billings suggests biometric features on guns as well as mandatory storage laws, of course, but again, this is about blaming the victims of these gun thefts.
What's more, I find it kind of funny that it's some groundbreaking discovery to note that people who own guns are more likely to have guns stolen from them. That's like saying people who own cars are more likely to be the victims of automotive theft.
No duh, Sherlock.
And they awarded this stupidity.
Seriously.
Especially as he contradicts himself, as noted in the above-quoted piece.
And that's not even getting into anything about the study itself. For example, it only looks at Charlotte, North Carolina, which isn't necessarily representative of the United States as a whole. Further, while Billings did note that many who got concealed carry permits had previously been the victim of a crime, he doesn't seem to account for the possibility that many did so because they live in a high-crime area, which alone would account for a higher level of victimization.
Nope. He just blamed concealed carriers for being the victim of a crime and thinks we should be mandated to keep our guns out of reach and use unproven technology that so far just doesn't even work much of the time.
It's always funny to me how every "problem" the researchers look at requires some kind of gun control and absolutely nothing else. I can't imagine why we think the entire field is full of anti-gun jihadists. Can you?
