An Inside Look at Left-Wing Social Science Gun Research

International Liberty ^ | March 20, 2013 | Dan Mitchell

[annalex]

An Inside Look at Left-Wing Social Science Gun Research

March 20, 2013 by Dan Mitchell

In a presumably futile effort to change their minds by learning how they think, I periodically try to figure out the left-wing mind.

Why, for instance, do some people believe in Keynesian economics, when it is premised on the fanciful notion that you can increase “spending power” by taking money out of the economy’s left pocket and putting it in the economy’s right pocket?

I actually think part of the problem is that folks on the left focus on how income is spent rather than how it’s earned, so I sometimes try to get them to understand that economic growth occurs when we produce more rather than consume more. My hope is that they’ll better understand how the economy works if they look at the issue from this perspective.

But I’m getting off track. I don’t want to get too serious because the purpose of this post is to share this satirical look at the how leftists rationalize their anti-gun biases.

Let’s take a look at two cities that are quite similar in terms of demographics and income. But they have very different murder rates. Your job is to pretend you’re a leftist and come up with an explanation.

To be fair, we can’t rule out cold weather as a possible explanation given this limited set of data.

For what it’s worth, however, scholars who actually do real research, like David Kopel and John Lott, reach different conclusions.

Returning to satire, the Houston-Chicago comparison reminds me of this IQ test for criminals and liberals.

And since we’re having some fun with our liberal friends, let’s close with this comparison of liberals, conservatives, and Texans.

[Robert357]

Well done, but this really does deserve some serious coverage. In the recent debates, I was stunned at some of the stuff that has gotten published with no questions in the name of gun violence research.

For example, if we use the “Brady list of key gun laws” as a basis and then look at states firearm homicide and firearm suicide rates some folk find correlations on the number of laws.

When asked how an assault weapons ban or a large capacity magazine ban reduces suicides (since most suicides are performed with a handgun and using a single round of ammunition) the relationship is sort of fuzzed over.

The classic study was of some families in Seattle in a drug/gang neighborhood. My favorite conclusion was that members of rival gangs who were shot by firearms in the home of one gang member, were classified as “friends and family” of the gun owning household, which is why the study’s conclusion that bringing a gun into a home makes it more dangerous for friends and family members.

I guess the liberal left inspired by Bill Clinton like definitional games, such as what “is” really “is” or what friends and family might mean.

Yes, the liberals are on a vendetta to make firearms and firearm ownership look like a bad thing. We really do need to have an educational forum to point out where they stretch the definitions beyond the reason.

[annalex]

I know an educated man who can repeat absolute imbecilities when it comes to gun control. I can argue with him on any other topic and it is a productive argument. With guns, some instinct just takes over. There must be a gun control enzyme or something.

[Morpheus2009]

The big shocker I have always seen is the Chapter from Freakonomics “Guns vs. Pools”. You can probably guess what this chapter is all about. Anyways, all I can say is, why am I not surprised at, when it comes to guns vs. swimming pools, which of the two kills more children under the age of 12?

[Noremac]

Dan - nice job indeed. It was a well functioning ‘thought grenade’. I emailed it to my ‘gentleman’s club’ email list. I know they’ll find it of value.

I recently wrote a post (that I haven’t yet posted to FR), that you might find interesting / amusing propaganda, called ‘Ban Dangerous Stuff’. It takes the progressive absurdities on gun control to their obvious illogical conclusion. I think you’ll like it:

http://blastedfools.wordpress.com/2012/12/18/ban-dangerous-stuff/

[annalex]

The Chicago-Houston observation has another aspect, beyond banning things uselessly.

If one were to find two cities, very similar, and similar in murder rates, with the only difference being the gun control policy, the rational conclusion then would have been that banning guns does not do anything to reduce the murder rate. But here we have two cities where — if we forget for a moment the clearly irrelevant to anything difference in climate, which the author uses for comical effect, — two cities where gun control is one difference and murder rate is the other difference. So what would the rational conclusion be? Obviously, that making guns available reduces the murder rate.

Not merely is gun control as silly as baseball bat control or swimming pool control, — it is outright a contributor to murder rate.

Of course, a rational person would also know why: when the general population is armed, the general population is defended. Less murders are contemplated, and of those that are contemplated less succeed.

Ah, to be a nation of rational people! Which we once were!