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CONCEALED CARRY
SAVES LIVES
Part Two: Research and History
[ B Y R O B E R T G . H E I N R I T Z , J R . , J . D . ]
“There may be a lively debate about whether the Constitution confers on individuals the right to bear arms, but that
debate is not going on in American courts, its law schools, or its scholarly legal journals. Indeed, even the National Rifle
Association could not recommend for this broadcast a single constitutional law professor who would defend the Second
Amendment as conferring on individuals the right to bear arms.”— Nina Totenberg, National Public Radio
As indicated in Part One last
month, I will be eternally grateful
for Nina Totenberg’s deliberate
misrepresentation and lie. She knows
better, but chose to perpetuate the deliberate
fraud of those who believe they
must take away your civil rights in order
to rule you. Nothing could be more un-
American.
The article below summarizes some
of the medical research, medical misrepresentations,
legitimate self-defense
data, and Constitutional cases. The
Founders strongly defended the Second
Amendment, not as conferring, but as
confirming an individual’s God-given
right of self defense. Americans must
be worthy of this heritage.
This summary, like our Constitution,
is both topical and timeless. I urge
all readers to follow up by reading the
magnificent research published in the
last ten years. Credible data is even
more supportive of our God-given right
of self defense. One of our Founders
said it best: “No free man shall ever be
debarred the use of arms.” 1
Center for Disease
Control: propaganda for
the politically correct?
What if you learned that a tax-funded
agency of the government was funding
research only if the research attempted
to “prove” that, say, blacks are racially
inferior or that the Holocaust didn’t
happen or that the Earth is the center of
the universe? Scientists have attempted
to prove all of these in the past, but
“Laws that forbid the carrying
of arms...disarm only those
who are neither inclined nor
determined to commit crimes...
Such laws make things worse
for the assaulted and better for
the assailants; they serve rather
to encourage than to prevent
homicides, for an unarmed man
may be attacked with greater
confidence than an armed man.”
—Thomas Jefferson, quoting 18th Century
criminologist, Cesare Beccaria, in On
Crimes and Punishment (1764)
would you consider that a wise or ethical
use of tax dollars?
Aside from outright incompetence,
one of the worst criticisms that can be
made of scientific research is that it is
“results oriented.” What this generally
means in its crudest form is the researcher
begins with the conclusion he
or she wishes to prove, selects only data
that appears to support the predetermined
conclusion, ignores or dismisses
all evidence of other conclusions, attacks
the sources of contrary evidence,
and argues the research proves the
intended conclusion irrespective of
whether actual causation has been
shown. Another “results oriented”
method is to fund only that research
which seeks to prove the results desired
by the funding agency, while refusing to
fund research that might show otherwise.
That is precisely what the Centers
for Disease Control (CDC) has been
doing in its pseudo-scientific position
that guns cause violence. Several studies
funded by the CDC attempt to use
risk-factor analysis to prove causation.
This type of study argues that the gun
(a “risk factor”) was present and therefore
its presence must have caused the
crime. Such studies studiously ignore
all other risk factors statistically related
to violent behavior, such as past criminal,
gang-related or violent history, drug
abuse, broken family, or mental illness.
The CDC’s logic is equivalent to finding
that on extremely hot days in St. Louis
nearly everyone has their air conditioners
running, therefore, air conditioners
cause heat waves.
What objective medical
research shows
Medical, scientific, and legal journals
now contain many scientifically
valid studies—none of which appear to
be funded by the CDC—showing that
firearms in the hands of law-abiding
citizens actually save lives, deter violence,
and reduce medical costs. Many
of the studies were conducted by selfprofessed
liberals who, before their
research, believed guns should be outlawed.
Still others expose the inherent
biases and false statistics of the antigun
medical organizations. 2
In separate articles published in
the March 1994 issue of Journal of the
Medical Association of Georgia, Dr.
Edgar A. Suter, and Dr. Miguel Faria, Jr., a
medical professor at Mercer University,
indicated that objective research proves
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USCONCEALEDCARRY.COM n CONCEALED CARRY MAGAZINE n JULY 2008