Study reveals the obvious: Gun shows do not increase homicides or suicides
Turn out the Lights: Their Party is Over
By Gerard Valentino
The Detroit News recently reported on yet another academic study which has found no evidence that gun shows lead to substantial increases in either gun-related homicides or suicides.
From the story:
Gun shows don't contribute to increased homicide or suicide rates, according to results of a study announced Wednesday by the University of Michigan's Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy.
The joint University of Michigan and University of Maryland examination of gun death data in the weeks surrounding more than 3,400 California and Texas gun shows concluded tighter regulation of the flea market-like operations did nothing to reduce firearms-related deaths in the following month.
The study compared homicides in Texas and California to see of the Sunshine State’s oppressive gun laws saved lives. More from the story:
"To the extent that 33 regulations such as those in place in California reduce any deleterious effects of gun shows, one might expect to detect a larger effect in a relatively unregulated state such as Texas. Our results, however, provide no evidence to suggest that gun shows lead to a substantial increase in the number of homicides or suicides in either California or Texas," said U-M professor Brian Jacob, head of the Ford School's Center for Local, State, and Urban Policy.
Like Michigan, California requires background checks for all gun buyers and a multiday waiting period to obtain the firearm. The wait in Michigan is three days and 10 days in California. Texas has no similar regulations.
"I'm not surprised they found those results. I'm surprised it took so long for someone to actually do the study," said Mike Thiede, spokesman for Michigan Gun Owners, a 3,700-member Dearborn Heights gun rights and gun education advocacy group.
This is yet another study that shows there is no quantifiable connection between availability of guns and an increase in homicides. In typical fashion, the anti-gun community calls the study flawed, as they always do when another nail is driven into the coffin of gun control. At this point, the coffin is not only nailed shut, but is in the hole waiting to be covered by dirt.
Clearly, only the anti-gun community doesn’t realize the desperation of their situation.
The same backwards thought process that makes people think 9/11 was perpetrated by President Bush, or who think the Holocaust is a hoax, allows people to be easily fooled into thinking gun control works. Despite the best effort of the anti-gunners, gun control is poised to sit in the same trash heap of ridiculous political ideas that holds so many “common sense” ideas.
As each of the anti-gun movement’s arguments have failed to prove any perceptible public safety benefit to gun control, their rhetoric gets shriller. They scream that blood will run in the streets or that the Wild West will come back to downtown Columbus if laws pass allowing honest people to carry guns.
They’ve done it so loud for so long everyone merely tunes them out. It helps that they are flat wrong each time they predict the coming Armageddon.
Picking off their ridiculous basis for gun control has become like shooting fish in a barrel as more evidence mounts proving gun control is an abject failure.
Now that a viable study exists to disprove the notion that gun-shows are a plague on society it puts another crack in the anti-gun community’s foundation. Describing Ohio’s anti-gun movement as a “community” is generous. They can be better described as a rag-tag group of three or four who try to fool the media, legislators and average citizens into thinking there is a groundswell of support for their way of thinking.
Many Americans were hypnotized by the tricks and misleading statistics thrown around by the anti-gunners. First, the hue and cry went up that we needed to “protect the children” from guns. True to form, they cooked up statistics which were exposed for being false. With one reason for banning guns down, they simple pulled more tricks from up their sleeve.
They were successful convincing people that guns on the street equal more crime until their cover was blown by Florida’s concealed carry law, and John Lott’s brilliant statistical work. Both went a long way to prove more guns equal less crime. Their next tactic was to go after “assault weapons.” When the Clinton anti-gun scheme passed into the sunset with a whimper, it further exposed their arguments as hopelessly flawed.
Now, the final chapter of their book is coming to an end as their assault on gun-shows was exposed as a crusade against a mythical enemy. Their quest is so delusional that Don Quixote himself would be jealous of the misplaced zeal.
Make no mistake, the anti-gun movement is chasing windmills in a bizarre mission to find insurmountable evidence to prove their work over the years was worthwhile. The problem is what appears as a dragon in their backwards perception disappears under wider scrutiny.
The problem is people who are delusional are disconnected from reality, making it impossible to reason with them. As the disconnect widens, their cries become even more shrill and incoherent. If the traditional media didn’t need to create a confrontational atmosphere, the anti-gun community would simply fade away. Like the Klan, they exist only because people notice, which gives them a place in the marketplace of ideas.
Over the last 12 years, the marketplace has rejected their failed ideas. A study showing that gun-shows pose no risk to society will cause the marketplace to reject another piece of the anti-gun pie. At this point, that pie is reduced to a pile of crumbs.
At some point soon, someone like Toby Hoover from the Ohio Coalition Against Gun Violence will be the last person attached to the anti-gun movement. As the last person out, she is responsible for turning off the lights.
Gerard Valentino is the Buckeye Firearms Central Ohio Chair and writes for the ValentinoChronicle.com.
Related Links:
Unversity of Michigan News Service Press Release
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