The illogical and downright corrupt conclusions of the Anti-Gun agenda.

How the Academic Left Engages in Debate
by John R. Lott Jr.

James Q. Wilson is now 80 years old, and for decades he has been the most prominent criminologist in the country. Wilson was on National Academy of Sciences panel that wrote the 2004 report “Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review.” The panel was set up by the Clinton administration and contained many outspoken gun-control proponents.

The purpose of the panel was to examine the research on whether various gun-control laws reduce or increase crime. In particular, the debate over right-to-carry laws — which give citizens the ability to carry concealed weapons — was raging in academia at the time; a body of research indicated that these laws reduce crime by giving the innocent a way to deter potential criminals.

Dissents for National Academy of Sciences reports are exceedingly rare. Being on a panel is a cushy, prestigious position, and there is a lot of pressure to sign on to the panel’s conclusion. Those who don’t sign on aren’t invited to be on future panels. Over the ten years prior to the “Firearms and Violence” report, there were 236 reports, and only two featured dissents.

For Wilson, the firearms panel was different. Wilson’s dissent was not only rare, it was forceful: “In view of the confirmation of the findings that shall-issue laws drive down the murder rate, it is hard for me to understand why these claims are called ‘fragile.’”

Wilson said that that panel’s conclusion raises concerns given that “virtually every reanalysis done by the committee” confirmed that right-to-carry laws reduced crime. He found the committee’s only evidence that did not confirm the drop in crime “quite puzzling.” The result that they pointed to was co-produced by John Donohue, a law professor at Stanford, and accounted for “no control variables” — nothing on any of the social, demographic, and public-policy factors that might affect crime. Furthermore, Wilson found it incomprehensible how evidence that was not published in a peer-reviewed journal would be given such weight: “It strikes me that such an argument ought first to be tested in a peer-reviewed journal before it is used in this report as a sound strategy.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/274689/how-academic-left-engages-debate-john-r-lott-jr#