Explore The NRA Universe Of Websites

APPEARS IN News

How Anti-Gun Research Works

Monday, July 26, 2021

How Anti-Gun Research Works

The objective world mistrusts most gun policy research because its clear the objective is to produce an anti-gun outcome rather than honest analysis. Politicians and professional activists claim the mantle of evidence but will ignore any findings that threaten their anti-gun agenda.

Anti-gun politicians continue to advocate for policies that the very researchers they champion have contradicted, if not found to be ineffective. Researchers and activists cherry-pick data, but they also cherry-pick which findings to use – even from a single study. Can you imagine if the same low threshold for credibility was applied to pro-gun findings?

Lets try an exercise. Vermont – one of the safest states in the nation, one that had Permitless Carry for centuries – enacted a magazine capacity restriction in 2018. Lets look at the violent crime rate in Vermont and the U.S using data from the FBIs Crime Data Explorer. The national violent crime rate decreased from 2018 to 2019 but the rate in Vermont increased – and even increased more than it had from 2017 to 2018.

Anti-gun researchers and activists have used a trend line like this as evidence of an effect. Surely, the violent crime rate increase and the magazine capacity restrictions must be related because they happened seemingly simultaneously.

Like many anti-gun researchers, we excluded any years that make our point look less dramatic if not outright unsupported. 

Lets try some rudimentary statistical analysis. The magazine capacity restriction and the violent crime rate have a correlation coefficient of 0.8 for the years 2009 through 2019. Does this strong correlation suggest any relationship between the magazine capacity restriction and the increase in violent crime?

Of course not; this, like nearly all social science research related to firearms policy, does not identify causation and excludes highly relevant social, cultural, and economic variables.

Narrow data selection or deliberate exclusions are not new phenomenon, but it is persistent. Anti-gun researchers also curate their datasets to ensure their findings support their pre-determined conclusion. If this happens to produce other unreasonable or even outrageous findings, no big deal. The gun control crowd has no problem overlooking inconvenient findings.

A recent example of picking-and-choosing research findings occurred in real estate. Investment firms, including BlackRock, went overtly anti-gun several years ago and wanted to use their financial power to force gun manufacturers and retailers to change their legal business strategies. Gun control organizations rated banks to shame them into cutting off the legal firearms industry, and even the Obama Administration got in on the act. Large investment firms were recently reported to be buying up residential real estate to realize long-term profits on the rental income.

Investment firms turned on legal firearms-related businesses because of the supposed associated harm, but now theyre encouraging a behavior that is nearly twice as risky – according to the grandfather of gun control research – as keeping a firearm in the home.

According to Arthur Kellermans 1993 study published in the New England Journal of Medicine, keeping a firearm in the home had an adjusted odds ratio of 2.7 compared to an adjusted odds ratio of 4.4 for renting (instead of owning) a home. The odds ratio represents an increase in the risk of homicide.

Renting presented the largest increase risk of homicide in the model while gun ownership was the smallest, but big gun control salivated at Kellermans misfocused conclusion. The findings related to renting vs. owning have been ignored, which may explain why supposedly socially conscious investment firms are encouraging consumers to engage in the riskiest behavior.

Kellermans study led to the Dickey Amendment because it was so obviously contrived to advance gun control. Based on the results, there is something very seriously wrong with Kellermans methodology. But, Kellermans paper has somehow held on and even continues to be cited in new papers. At least thirteen papers published so far this year cite Kellerman – and this should also tell you something about the state of gun policy research.

Anti-gun researchers Philip J. Cook and John J. Donohue published a letter in Science in 2017 that acknowledged the necessary data, time, and resources are readily available to academics who want to conduct research on gun policy. But all we hear about it the need for federally funded gun control research, even after an admission from the paper of record.

Make no mistake –professional gun control activists want to trade on the perceived credibility of the federal government. This is not sincere, sterile research. Consider the sort of ridiculously flawed anti-gun research that has been published and the shortcuts required to produce an anti-gun talking point. Think about the voluminous criticisms leveled at Gary Kleck and yet no one has reproduced his research with a different finding.

Anti-gun researches will continue to use flawed methodology and bad data as long as a fawning media and gun control establishment continue to fuel any research” with the right” conclusion

IN THIS ARTICLE
Research Bias
TRENDING NOW
Canada Announces New Gun Bans, More Gun Control on the Horizon

News  

Monday, December 9, 2024

Canada Announces New Gun Bans, More Gun Control on the Horizon

On December 5, at a late afternoon press conference in Ottawa, Canada’s federal Public Safety Minister Dominic LeBlanc announced that 324 additional makes and variants of rifles would be added to the 2020 list of ...

Hunter Biden Pardon Makes a Fitting Mockery of Federal Gun Control

News  

Monday, December 9, 2024

Hunter Biden Pardon Makes a Fitting Mockery of Federal Gun Control

NRA-ILA routinely points out that it is more informative to watch anti-gun politicians and officials’ behavior than to listen to the platitudes they spew about enacting gun control to protect the public. 

Operation Choke Point 2.0? Financial Services Discrimination Back in the News

News  

Monday, December 9, 2024

Operation Choke Point 2.0? Financial Services Discrimination Back in the News

The plague of businesses and even individuals being exiled from the modern economy by politically motivated regulators is back in the news, thanks largely to a recent segment on the Joe Rogan Experience podcast in ...

Anti-Gun Extremists Continue Long History of Failure in PA Courts

News  

Monday, December 9, 2024

Anti-Gun Extremists Continue Long History of Failure in PA Courts

Philadelphia and Pittsburgh have been trying, and failing, to circumvent Pennsylvania’s firearm preemption law, first enacted in 1974, for decades.  

Michigan: Anti-Gun Legislators Make Final Push Before Close of Session

Friday, December 6, 2024

Michigan: Anti-Gun Legislators Make Final Push Before Close of Session

With less than seven session days remaining, anti-gun legislators are aggressively pushing several bills that threaten the Second Amendment rights of Michigan citizens. These efforts come as they aim to cement their legacy before losing ...

NRA Files U.S. Supreme Court Amicus Brief Defending American Firearms Manufacturers in Lawsuit Brought by Mexico

Tuesday, December 3, 2024

NRA Files U.S. Supreme Court Amicus Brief Defending American Firearms Manufacturers in Lawsuit Brought by Mexico

Today, NRA filed an amicus brief in the U.S. Supreme Court in Smith & Wesson Brands, Inc. v. Estados Unidos Mexicanos.

Ohio: Pro-Gun Legislation Passes House Committee, Eligible for Floor Vote

Tuesday, December 10, 2024

Ohio: Pro-Gun Legislation Passes House Committee, Eligible for Floor Vote

Today, the House Insurance Committee passed Senate Bill 58, a bill to prohibit the state from requiring fees or firearms liability insurance for the possession of firearms. Additionally, Senate Bill 148, The Second Amendment Privacy Act, was ...

PA: Age Restriction Lawsuit Update for Blair County

Friday, December 6, 2024

PA: Age Restriction Lawsuit Update for Blair County

You may have seen the following alert where NRA along with Firearms Policy Coalition and two individuals filed a federal lawsuit in western Pennsylvania challenging Pennsylvania's prohibition on concealed carry by adults under 21. 

Michigan: Take Action Against Gun Control Today!

Wednesday, December 11, 2024

Michigan: Take Action Against Gun Control Today!

Anti-gun legislators in Michigan are still working to pass legislation restricting Second Amendment rights. Several gun control bills we have previously reported on have passed out of committee and are now eligible for a floor vote. Legislators ...

Michigan: Anti-Gun Bills Pass Out of Committee, Eligible for a Vote

Tuesday, December 10, 2024

Michigan: Anti-Gun Bills Pass Out of Committee, Eligible for a Vote

As Michigan’s legislative session nears an end, anti-gun legislators are working hard to pass legislation restricting Second Amendment rights in Michigan. Several gun control bills we have previously reported on have passed out of committee ...

MORE TRENDING +
LESS TRENDING -

More Like This From Around The NRA

NRA ILA

Established in 1975, the Institute for Legislative Action (ILA) is the "lobbying" arm of the National Rifle Association of America. ILA is responsible for preserving the right of all law-abiding individuals in the legislative, political, and legal arenas, to purchase, possess and use firearms for legitimate purposes as guaranteed by the Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution.