by Joseph P. Tartaro | Executive Editor
For years the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention helped underwrite and push research that would support passage of more gun control laws. Much of what was published was termed junk science but it was justified by supporters who claimed that the criminal misuse of firearms was a public health problem, ignoring all other factors related to the crime statistics.
About ten years ago, the federal funding for such studies was cut off by Congress. During that period, homicide rates declined, even as more people became first-time gun owners.
However, as one of the key elements of the Obama administration’s push for more gun control legislation, much of that funding was restored by executive order.
Proponents of gun control immediately whined that because of the previous lack of funding for grants that would support more such junk science the people who were available for such grants had gone where the money was, meaning that focused their attention on other public policy issues where funding was available.
But that hasn’t prevented some segments of the health community from continuing to generate more gun control “studies,” most of what have been of questionable value. The anti-gun foundation money never dried up either, so plenty of junk science was always still available, not just in the US but in other countries. Some of that international junk science has been the justification for the United Nations Arms Trade Treaty and other global gun control schemes.
Such studies also form the basis of much media attention. One of the latest of these is one that links racism with gun ownership and opposition to more gun control by white Americans.
In October, Science Daily reported on such junk science, reporting that a new study has found that higher levels of racism in white Americans is associated with having a gun in the home and greater opposition to gun control policies.
“The research, published in PLoS One, was led by Dr Kerry O’Brien from The University of Manchester and Monash University and used data from a large representative sample of white US voters.
“After accounting for numerous other factors such as income, education and political ideology, the researchers found that for each one point increase (on a scale from one to five) in symbolic racism there was a 50 percent increase in the odds of having a gun in the home and a 28 percent increase in support for policies allowing people to carry concealed guns,” the news story continued.
Each one point increase in symbolic racism (a modern measure of anti-black racism) was also associated with a 27 percent increase in the odds of opposing bans on handguns in the home. After accounting for those who already had a gun in the home, the odds were reduced to a non-significant 17 percent increase.
However, the authors of the study noted that this reduction is unsurprising as opposition to bans on guns equates to self-interest on behalf of those who already own a gun and do not wish to give it up. And racism was already strongly associated with having a gun in the home.
None of this however comes to grips with the startling increase in the number of new gun owners or the spike in the number of those seeking concealed carry licenses in practically every state.
The research was stimulated by gun control debates in the US after mass shootings such as the Sandy Hook tragedy, and research showing that with all things being equal black Americans are more likely to be shot than whites.
The most recent figures show that there are approximately 38,000 gun related deaths in the US each year. By lumping all firearms-related deaths, homicides, justifiable use of guns for self-defense and suicides, the “researchers” always manage to inflate the number of gun-related deaths.
Dr. O’Brien said in justifying his study: “Coming from countries with strong gun control policies, and a 30- fold lower rate of gun-related homicides, we found the arguments for opposing gun control counter-intuitive and somewhat illogical. For example, US whites oppose gun control to a far greater extent than do blacks, but whites are actually more likely to kill themselves with their guns, than be killed by someone else. Why would you keep them? So we decided to examine what social and psychological factors predict gun ownership and opposition to gun control.”
Conservatism, anti-government sentiment, party identification, being from a southern state, were also associated with opposition to gun controls, but the association between racism and the gun-related outcomes remained after accounting for these factors and other participant characteristics (age, education, income, gender).
Symbolic racism supplanted old-fashioned or overt/blatant racism which was associated with open support for race inequality and segregation under “Jim Crow Laws,” but it still captures the anti-black sentiment and traditional values that underpinned blatant racism. Symbolic racism has also been found to be related to stronger opposition to policies that may benefit blacks (e.g. welfare), and greater support for policies that seem to disadvantage blacks (e.g. longer prison sentences), the report claimed.
In reporting on the same study, the Washington Times also cited a Pew Research Center study from January that found that 53 percent of whites said they want to protect their rights to gun ownership while only 24 percent of blacks said the same.
It’s not the first time race and opinions on gun policy have been linked, and one gun rights activist called the study’s conclusions “preposterous,” The Times reported.
“I think the notion that someone is trying to tie gun ownership to racism is silly,” said Dave Workman, an editor at the Second Amendment Foundation’s magazine TheGunMag.com.
Noting an increase in the last five years in the number of permits to allow people to carry concealed weapons, Workman said he’s seen anecdotal evidence that gun ownership is increasing among minorities, including blacks, Hispanics and women.
Researchers note that whites’ stronger opposition to gun control has shifted over the course of the last century. The study says that during the civil rights movement black activists exercised their right to carry guns for protection from police and extreme white factions, and that the response from white people was to demand stricter gun control.
This is just one recent example of the kind of junk science we will be dealing with if the CDC gets a chance to put the government money where their opinions are already formed.
