The reason research is conducted is, ostensibly, because the researchers are seeking the truth. That's at least how it's supposed to be. Unfortunately, that hasn't been the case for a very long time, especially in the field of "gun research." We've talked about the problems before.
Yet, they continue, and a couple of recent reports out of the medical community are premised on lies.
Yeah, I know, this doesn't shock you. While individual doctors can be excellent, pro-gun people--I've known many in my years--the medical establishment itself is nothing but a shill for anti-gun rhetoric.
That was personified by the Journal of the American Medical Association and a couple of "studies" they shared recently. I took a shot last week at one of those studies, but there were other issues I missed.
And the pro-gun organizations are taking them on.
First, the NSSF took a shot by noting the outright lies.
The study opens with the often repeated and misleading claim that firearms are the leading cause of death for children in the United States. As mentioned, this false claim was debunked by The Washington Post which showed that firearms were not the leading cause of death for American children. Older teens, 15-17 years old, are the most susceptible, predominantly for Black teens. That population is at high risk for violence-related disparities.
The authors of this JAMA study came up with a bold and striking claim: “That permissive firearm laws contributed to thousands of excess firearm deaths among children living in states with permissive policies; future work should focus on determining which types of laws conferred the most harm and which offered the most protection.”
The study’s authors categorized the states, where there was enough data, by three legal groupings of “Strict,” “Permissive” and “Most Permissive,” related to firearm laws. Predictably, they “found” that states with “Strict” firearm regulations post-McDonald v Chicago were associated with less adolescent firearm fatalities.
For the media and gun control allies and politicians, the conclusion is clear: states that respect Second Amendment rights are bad, states with strict gun control are better. The New York Times ran with the story. So too did CNN, never questioning the manipulation of the data, even blindly repeating the original debunked claim ABC News published the story, as did others. It was syndicated and published all across the country countless times.
But why do the study’s authors manipulate the data by using estimated, predicted and crude-rate adjusted figures instead of analyzing the real incidents?
The answer is obvious. They did so because the raw figures published by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) tell a very different story.
Shocking, right? </sarcasm>
This is par for the course, though. The media doesn't actually understand research. They merely parrot what they're told. That's even more true when they want to believe what they're being told. In this case, that "permissive" gun laws are the problem and they should end.
But Lee Williams at The Gun Writer, which is part of the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project, also took a shot at the studies.
In his latest story, Sathya based his entire argument on one of the most questionable of sources: the Annual Gun Law Scorecard from the Giffords Law Center to Prevent Gun Violence.
For those who value the truth, Gifford’s annual anti-gun scorecard is a joke.
“The gun violence crisis isn’t a mystery. It’s a choice America has made,” the site claims.
The site awards California an “A” grade, which it claims makes it the safest state, 21 other states received an “F,” due to the freedoms they give their residents.
To sum, Sathya’s story is anti-gun propaganda, which was based upon older anti-gun propaganda.
He also notes another story using the Gun Violence Archive, which Williams has debunked numerous times, as have we here at Bearing Arms. They exist solely by using news reports and use an overly broad definition of "mass shooting" specifically to bump the numbers ever skyward, all so lawmakers will be pressured to pass gun control.
That's not a neutral entity simply tracking the numbers. That's an activist organization trying to push an agenda.
Which, of course, is very suggestive of why so-called researchers use those numbers, just as they use Giffords and their scorecard to define "permissive" states.
See, I want science to be conducted. I want the truth to be learned, because that's how we move forward as a species. In the realm of violent crime, I want to know what's going on and why people do these sorts of things. I'm not going to give up my rights, but there are other things that are going on here that researchers simply don't look at or consider.
We need to understand the truth.
What we don't need are people who already have their minds made up and are just looking to manipulate data in order to advance their agenda. That's not science, that's propaganda.
That's what we've been getting, and there's absolutely no reason for us to tolerate it.
