Reply #140: Most of what you say is incorrect. [View All]

It's not true that "most" studies I cite have been shown to be "woefully" flawed (if it were, you probably would have been able to come up with some real examples of credible refutations). What you are repeating is a common myth in pro-gun circles. Most of these "refutations" that you find on pro-gun internet posts will never appear in peer-reviewed literature, because they are, frankly, garbage. But if you really believe that the "anti-gun" studies are all flawed, then I have no illusions that I am going to be able to change your mind.


Regarding your belief that medical researchers (or, as others have claimed, economists) are not qualified to study gun issues, this ultimately doesn't hold water either. It's actually nothing like a chiropractor performing brain surgery. What's required is skill in analyzing data in a social-science type setting, and it's not just sociologists who are able to do this. Similar to above, this accusation is also popular the "gun-nets", but again you'll be hard pressed to find anyone serious to back this up. For example, I challenge you to find Gary Kleck arguing that epidemiologists and economists have no business studying gun control. Criminologists, economists, and public health types cite each other's papers. If they disagree, they disagree with the actual research, but they don't try to dismiss other research based on what field appears on a degree.

What's more, if we really want to play the "who's more qualified" game, by stereotype both economics and medical sciences would be considered more demanding or "harder" than sociology/criminology. Moreover, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, UChicago, etc. (where authors of many these gun studies are from) are all considered more reputable than Florida State (Kleck). Again, nobody serious about research would dismiss anyone because they are from FSU, or because of what it says in their PhD. But if you want to try and dismiss someone as unqualified, the lone criminologist from FSU isn't going to hold up very well versus the numerous scholars in more highly regarded fields at more prestigeous universities.


Finally, regarding Kleck's work, yes, he did provide some evidence contradicting the efficacy of gun control. And in so doing, he became one of the academic heroes of the pro-gun movement, along with John Lott. Most everyone pro-gun, it seems, is aware of Kleck's research, but for some reason they do not seem to be aware of the much larger body of research on guns, the preponderance of which supports the opposite view.

This point was illustrated somewhat humorously in an earlier post on this OP by another pro-gun poster. In an attempt to cite someone other than Kleck supporting the pro-gun position, the poster linked to a paper by authors Cook and Ludwig. Of course, unbeknownst to the poster, Cook and Ludwig, along with most others who have studied this issue, actually conclude that more guns results in more deaths. And so the poster quickly had to revert his stance and argue that Cook and Ludwig were actually not credible after all.

I bring up this incident not because all pro-gun people are responsible for the errors of one individual, but to point out it's rather difficult to step off the Gary Kleck reservation without very quickly running into research that actually contradicts Kleck's work and shows that more guns do in fact cause more crime. It doesn't have to be Cook and Ludwig. There's a lot more of it out there.