A common myth the left has incorporated into its narrative is that gun violence research is under-funded. The fact that former New York City mayor Michael Bloomberg is emptying his billionaire pockets for an anti-gun brainwashing course should lay that myth to rest.
Daniel Webster, a professor with the Bloomberg School of Public Health at Johns Hopkins University, and his gun hating colleagues launched their online course “Reducing Gun Violence in America: Evidence for Change.”
It’s hard to miss the fact that Bloomberg’s name is so prominently attached to this course. Bloomberg is the ninth richest man in the world. He donated more than $5 billion to anti-gun efforts and other causes. He founded the gun hating organization Everytown for Gun Safety. So that should tell you all you need to know about the course direction these professors took.
He also gave $1.8 billion to Johns Hopkins University last November – the largest private donation ever granted to any higher education institution.
The course’s aim is “get participants up to speed on ‘relevant legal issues and effectively use data’ central to the nation’s policy debate on guns.”
Organizers for the course invited mainly high school and college-aged students to attend. One group that was purposely left off the invite list was anyone with ties to supporting gun rights and the Second Amendment. According to Ammoland, “ The organizers deliberately did not invite anyone from the NRA and the gun rights movement to participate in the course, and the results are what one would expect when such a conscious decision is made.”
The course fails in every way possible at being a fair appraisal of the gun-control vs gun-rights issue. Course material contains multiple studies that have been discredited and research that has largely been rejected without telling the students the “facts” they are being presented with have been disputed at all.
What’s also left out is the fact that some of the data used to prove their guns are bad viewpoint is that the data was disproved by, get this, another Bloomberg financed study.
To be fair, one course material does acknowledge “a very important principle here is that gun owners who purchase a firearm legally, generally are even more law-abiding than your average person.” I guess if there is one bright spot its that professors restrict the demonization of the Second Amendment to gun laws, rather than gun owners.
One curious piece of information Professor Webster left off his course syllabus was his own work on the subject of guns. Webster conducted a study on comprehensive firearm background checks and misdemeanor violence prohibitions in California, in which Webster found no effect of these laws on firearm homicides in California. Hmmmm, wonder why Webster didn’t want his students to know that.
One of the studies students are taught in the course is by Gary Kleck. Kleck conducted an exhaustive study that found there are almost 2.5 million defensive gun uses each year in America. Of course though Webster doesn’t let that information stand. He spends a great deal of time criticizing that study according to the course syllabus. Webster claims Kleck’s study exaggerates the number of people shot during the study period was calculated on “too small a sample size.”
Of course, Webster doesn’t allow criticism for any of the pro-gun control studies on the same topic he presents in his course. Webster alleges in his teachings that Kleck’s study includes an exaggerated number of shootings during the study period. Webster says the number of defensive gun uses is closer to around 116,000 per year.
Using the lower number, he says it is a “much, much smaller fraction of an estimated number of times in which civilians are using guns in self-defense.”
Though it is flawed, even if that lower number were accurate, Webster ignores the significance of even that many people protecting their life and property with a firearm.
The Bloomberg funded study makes no effort to mention neither the millions of American gun owners who are not killed nor those who did not kill anyone else.
It should be pointed out that research into gun violence did not begin with liberal billionaire, Michael Bloomberg.
The Rand Corporation and The Arnold Foundation have partnered on extensive firearm-related violence to review thousands of studies published from 2003 to 2016. Of those thousands of studies, only 62 met the criteria required for inclusion into Rand’s “A Critical Synthesis of Research Evidence on the Effects of Gun Policies in the United States.
Mainstream media “journalists” repeatedly report as fact studies with unfounded claims. As a recent article published by NRA-ILA states, “The adoring media never let questionable model specification or odd findings undermine their predetermined outcome.”
The Bloomberg funded study is built on the old saying about statistics: “all models are wrong, but some are useful.”
Anti-gun research sees that “as a green light to do whatever it takes to produce a ‘useful” model.’” Even the Second Amendment hating New York Times calls Bloomberg to task in its call for researchers with “integrity and competence”.
It seems, Mayor Bloomberg, you don’t have any.
