{"id":63076,"date":"2020-12-19T16:48:38","date_gmt":"2020-12-19T22:48:38","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=63076"},"modified":"2020-12-19T16:48:38","modified_gmt":"2020-12-19T22:48:38","slug":"63076","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/?p=63076","title":{"rendered":""},"content":{"rendered":"

Actually I don’t think we do need more research on gun control (unless perhaps it’s about which stance;\u00a0 Isosceles, Weaver, Chapman, Center Axis Relock really works) .
\nJust me but “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<\/strong>.” <\/em>works fine.
\nIf I recall correctly, someone once observed that the Constitution and Bill of Rights were purposely written in the common language of the day without all the flowery legalese so loved by the Lawyer class.<\/p>\n

Maybe it’s not what guns people should or shouldn’t have. Maybe it’s what people do with the guns they have that we be concerned about<\/p>\n

\n

We need honest debate and rigorous research on gun control<\/a><\/p>\n

a \u201ctime bomb under President-elect Biden\u2019s doormat<\/a>.\u201d The time-bomb wasn\u2019t a bogus dossier, FBI agents lying in order to spy on Biden\u2019s campaign, or a special counsel to investigate Hunter Biden. It was, rather, the appointment of renowned but controversial researcher John R. Lott Jr. as a senior advisor for research and statistics at the Office of Justice Programs at the Department of Justice.<\/p>\n

Lott has had a long career as a researcher at some of America\u2019s most respected universities: from Yale to UCLA to Wharton to the University of Chicago and until recently, he was the president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, which I now lead. But he is best known for his controversial thesis on a hot button issue, encapsulated well in his University of Chicago Press book: \u201cMore Guns, Less Crime<\/a>.<\/em>\u201d<\/p>\n

Dix wrote that the news of Lott\u2019s appointment made his \u201cblood run cold\u201d because Lott\u2019s thesis had been \u201cfound to be false<\/a>\u201d by Stanford Law Professor John Donohue and his colleagues. But whether or not he realized it, Dix\u2019s citation actually showcases the need for much more credible and robust research into the effect of gun control policies.<\/p>\n

Dix noted that Donahue and his colleagues concluded that Lott\u2019s thesis was \u201cwithout credible statistical support,\u201d and that \u2014 contrary to Lott \u2014 right-to-carry gun laws were actually associated with higher rates of murder, rape, aggravated assault, robbery, etc.<\/p>\n

If that were the final word, we could leave it at that. But it\u2019s not.<\/p>\n

You see, academics disagree with each other all the time. Many of their disagreements hinge on methodological choices that will inevitably sound arcane to the lay reader but are of crucial importance. Sorting through arguments to arrive at the most reliable methods is the key to genuine intellectual progress.<\/p>\n

In this case, it\u2019s true enough that Donahue et al found in a 2003\u00a0study<\/a>\u00a0that guns were associated with increases in crime. But a review of their work, also published in the Stanford Law Review,\u00a0argued<\/a>\u00a0that Donahue and his partner \u201csimply misread their own results \u2026 Their own most general specification that breaks down the impact of the law on a year-by-year basis shows large\u00a0crime-reducing benefits.\u201d<\/em>\u00a0(Emphasis added.)<\/p>\n

Donahue later, using a different methodology,\u00a0found<\/a>\u00a0that right to carry laws \u201care associated with 13-15 percent higher aggregate violent crime rates ten years after adoption.\u201d Two other academics reviewed this paper and published a piece in Econ Journal Watch\u00a0concluding<\/a>\u00a0that Donahue\u2019s results were \u201cfragile,\u201d as his study \u201cfail[ed] to control for any of the major factors that cause crime rates to vary,\u201d and concluded from the same data and similar methodology that \u201cwe find states where crime increased after the implementation of [right-to-carry] law and we find\u00a0more\u00a0<\/em>states in which crime decreased.\u201d (Emphasis added.)<\/p>\n

For my part, I could point to many dozens of peer-reviewed academic studies conducted by a wide range of authors suggesting that widespread gun ownership deters crime. Academics have found evidence right-to-carry laws\u00a0deter violent crime<\/a>, including\u00a0rapes and murders<\/a>, lower\u00a0burglary rates<\/a>, and that restrictive concealed carry laws may\u00a0increase<\/a>\u00a0the murder rate.<\/p>\n

Others might argue that those studies have their own shortcomings. And such disagreement ought to be encouraged.<\/p>\n

Rather than attack researchers engaged in the debate \u2014 or try to police who should be allowed to engage in it \u2014 we should welcome a diversity of voices and perspectives into the issue of gun control. Many people have strongly held beliefs on the issue. Mr. Dix has his, having lost a son to an unsecured gun stored at his friend\u2019s house.<\/p>\n

I have mine, having lost my daughter Meadow in a school shooting. Rather than jump to blame the gun itself, I looked for all the facts and found that there were so many layers of human failure that had absolutely nothing to do with gun control that enabled it. But all of these failures were effectively covered up by a single-minded media narrative that only wanted to blame the gun. I documented the full story in a book \u201cWhy Meadow Died<\/a>.<\/em>\u201d For now, consider this: Two unarmed security guards gave their lives charging at the shooter with their bare hands. If they had been armed, my daughter might have been saved.<\/p>\n

Thanks to my advocacy, school staff in Florida are now armed. I firmly believe this will save lives. Others are certainly welcome to argue for gun control policies that I believe would be misguided and dangerous.<\/p>\n

But no one should try to police the research community\u2019s efforts to better inform this debate. The stakes are too high to pretend like the science is settled or to forget that diverse voices are needed to arrive at the most trustworthy facts.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Actually I don’t think we do need more research on gun control (unless perhaps it’s about which stance;\u00a0 Isosceles, Weaver, Chapman, Center Axis Relock really works) . Just me but “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 … Continue reading “”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,8],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-63076","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-rights","category-rkba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63076","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=63076"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63076\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":63077,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/63076\/revisions\/63077"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=63076"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=63076"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/milesfortis.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=63076"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}