Scholarly studies need scrutiny

The bodies of the victims of the tragic mass school shooting in Parkland Florida were still warm when the media and politicians started calling for government to act, to do something, now.

Essentially they were asking the help to take care of it, so they could go on with their lives.

But the cavalry cannot ride into the canyon, bugles blaring, and solve this problem. There is no reason to believe any of the same “common sense” gun proposals that are trotted out every time this happens would have stopped the killer.

The troubled teen this time purchased his gun legally and passed the background check. The semi-automatic rifle he used did not have a bump stock and might not have even been listed on the now repealed assault weapon ban, which really only banned scary looking semi-auto rifles.

So, knowing the public needed to hear something new, the gun grabbers turned to calling for full scale confiscation of these rifles. The Australian Solution they call it, eerily reminiscent of another final solution. Hitler actually did confiscate Germans’ weapons. Do you really believe that Americans are such good Germans they would allow gun confiscation? There is already mass agitation about deportations of illegal immigrants. You want to put gun confiscation out there as well?

The Russians only dream of sowing as much discord as we are capable of sowing nicely ourselves.

Michael Bloomberg, America’s oligarch of the Nanny State, has financed several flawed studies echoing in the left wing ideological echo chamber. The first is the ridiculous notion that there have been 18 school shootings this year alone. Cable news loves mass shootings and would have covered every one for days. The study lists suicides committed in a school parking lot, accidental gun discharges that harmlessly strike a school and other unrelated incidents as school shootings.

But worse are the confident assertions by talking heads that this study proves Connecticut is so much safer since they passed gun control than Missouri, where they relaxed gun laws. This is another example of how social science has become unreliable and little more than a tool for mass confirmation bias. One should not compare two entities out of 50 in the first place. That’s called cherry picking. And the data in terms of years that are studied changes dramatically if you simply add a year or two. Then the correlation disappears.

Besides, gun owners in Connecticut have simply ignored new gun registration laws.

It’s always best to avoid quoting social science studies as the main reason for passing new laws. Why not first examine how to better study existing laws and how they are implemented?

It’s welcome that Republicans are finally criticizing the Federal Bureau of Investigation. The FBI dropped the ball and did not follow leads on the Florida killer. Police came to his home on domestic calls numerous times. Supposedly he killed small animals for fun. A classic indication of future violence uninvestigated.

But the left, which proclaims its solidarity with Black Lives Matter, wants to pass new laws against guns. And who will enforce these laws? Policemen with guns, of course—the same police they accuse of not caring about black lives will have more laws to use against blacks.

The level of gun violence has been on a dramatic decline since the early Clinton years, but at the cost of a dramatic rise in the number of Americans, especially blacks, in prison. The decline in violence also correlates with the dramatic rise in concealed carry permits. Do more guns mean less crime?

My confirmation bias is that freedom works.