The Science is In!

From a CDC study that was ordered by the Obama Administration:

“Almost all national survey estimates indicate that defensive gun uses by victims are at least as common as offensive uses by criminals,” says the report, which was completed in June and ignored in the mainstream press.

The study, which was farmed out by the CDC to the Institute of Medicine and National Research Council, also revealed that while there were “about 300,000 violent crimes involving firearms in 2008,” the estimated number of defensive uses of guns ranges “from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year.”

And as you all well know, you can’t argue with science. They wouldn’t want to be science deniers now, would they?

UPDATE: Here is the actual study.

16 thoughts on “The Science is In!”

      1. Exactly. The Brady Campaign’s research on DGUs indicates about 108,000 or so DGUs per year. They’ll concede that many.

        Everyone else’s is in the 500K-3M range. Which means if this report cites any number other than 108K – regardless of the source (the historically non-gun-friendly CDC) or the reliability and repeatability of the results – they’ll label it as “gun-lobby propaganda.”

        I’m not sure how you’d get “gun-lobby propaganda” out of the CDC, but if the anti-gun groups acknowledge this at all, that’s how it’ll be treated.

  1. It will be ignored by the media. The best case scenario is that some politicos might decide it’s time to stop spending all their capital on the gun control spot on the roulette wheel of politics.

  2. So… how long before our glorious masters ignore the study and do what they want anyway?

  3. The National Academy of Sciences did a comprehensive review about a decade ago now. The panel was anti-gun (mostly appointed by Clinton) except for James Q. Wilson (the author of “Bureaucracy,” for those who have read it). They could not find a single gun control intervention that seemed effective. They identified that there are gaps in the data unless you have complete registration, and then admitted that the data still suck even in places with registration.

    In short the science has been settled for a decade. Elected officials don’t care about facts because voters don’t care about facts. Most voters are low information.

    “Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that.” George Carlin

    Once you get to the upper end of the bell curve of voters, about a third to half have rabid antigun ideology. You can never reach them with reason or ideas.

    The other third are with us anyways. Facts or data may reinforce their convictions but they aren’t persuadable.

    The middle third of upper-bell curve informed voters might be open to facts but many are not. Honestly the gun issue takes a significant personal emotional experience to get people to come around on.

    I am glad that the facts are on our side as it reinforces the justness of the Cause but even if they weren’t, the Cause would still be just. Natural rights are not up for negotiation based on data. Banning Muslims from the country would likely reduce the incident of 9/11-style terror attacks but we don’t do that because freedom of religion is a specifically enumerated Constitutional right and a Natural right enjoyed by all people. The same goes for the second.

  4. OK, What business does the Centers for DISEASE Control have with gun use?
    Or are they trying to infer that using or owning guns is a disease?

  5. CSGV retort: B… B…But don’t you see? All gun violence is bad! Even self-defense violence is bad, which occurs just as much as the REALLY BAD violence…

  6. Well the Executive Order directing the CDC to start investigating causation of gun violence again is merely opening the door for bad science and manipulated statistics the media and antigun poiticians can seize upon when the time is right. They simply need to staff the appropriate portion of the CDC with appointees who will publish anti-gun propaganda in support of their ideology and are wiling to falsify studies and statistics to support their agenda. Give it some time, and Im sure new appointees will come to the “correct conclusions” about civiian gun ownership–with the correct measure of pressure from the anti gun politicians of course.

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