Thursday, May 13, 2010

Michael Bellesiles' New Book

The Volokh Conspiracy posted the other day about the new book coming out by Prof. Michael Bellesiles. It's a wonderful post followed by absolutely fascinating comments. Naturally they're all taking the publisher to task for this.
Michael Bellesiles is perhaps most famous as the target of an infamous “swiftboating” campaign by the National Rifle Association, following the publication of his Bancroft Prize-winning book Arming America (Knopf, 2000) — “the best kind of non-fiction,” according to the Chicago Tribune — which made daring claims about gun ownership in early America.
And, of course, the commenters don't fail to cover the false comparisons between Bellesiles and Lott. At least that's their take on it.

My favorite was the comment by Lou Gots, which, I'm not sure but, I think was facetious.

We can’t think of Bellesiles without seeing this in our mind’s eye.




What's your opinion? Is there some truth to the theory that Bellesiles was "swiftboated" by the NRA? Is there a fair comparison between him and John Lott?

What do you think? Please leave a comment.

25 comments:

  1. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  2. To a certain extent, Bellesiles was swiftboated. This is not to say Bellesiles isn't guilty of some very sloppy research.

    The gunloon community mounted a concerted effort to discredit/destroy Bellesiles, Bellesiles, of course, provided his sloppy research to make this possible. The gunloons seized upon a few instances where Bellesiles research was dicey and/or questionable and inflated it to pretend Bellesile's entire thesis was fraudulent. One gunloon went so far as to compare Bellesiles work to murder.


    But if we all agree that every word Bellesiles wrote was a deliberate lie, it never was intended to influence policy as Lott's fraudulent work continues to do.

    --JadeGold

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  3. He was swiftboated by the academic community, not by the NRA.

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  4. Mike W. apparently doesn't understand the maenung oof the term "swiftboated."

    Which is to be expected.

    The term means to lie about, smear, or otherwise misrepresent.

    The academic community quite rightly investigate Bellesiles and pointed out those areas where his research was sloppy or unsupported.

    OTOH, you had gunloons like Cramer claiming Bellesiles' book was the equivalent of murder.

    --JadeGold

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  5. JadeGold:

    Bellesisle was an idiot for doing what he did. He paid the price.

    John Lott is an egregious serial liar who has exactly no professional integrity--and his work is STILL widely cited by the Type 2A's.

    But, you have to remember that there is virtually no profit motive for most of us who support reasonable regulation of weapons.

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  6. Democommie: “But, you have to remember that there is virtually no profit motive for most of us who support reasonable regulation of weapons.”

    There is for Josh Sugarmann. Maybe even Jadegold. I also suspect Bellesiles wrote his book with some profit in mind.

    Serious question here Demo; is there anyone outside of gun control groups that have criticized Lott? If so can you post a link. I am not saying there isn’t, I would just like to read a reputable critique.

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  7. TS:

    Three is not exactly "most".

    Criticism of Lott?

    Here's one:

    http://mediamatters.org/research/200506300004

    Lots of linkyloos in there I think.

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  8. There is for Josh Sugarmann. Maybe even Jadegold. I also suspect Bellesiles wrote his book with some profit in mind.

    Of course, this makes no sense.

    If we assume Josh Sugarmann is just a hack who will say or do anything for the money, does it make sense for him to do it at VPC where I'd be surprised if he pulls down a salary of $100K? Contrast that to Wayne LaPierre who pulls down over a million a year and can have his staff ghostwrite a book for him whenever he needs a spare million?


    If Sugarmann were in it for the money, the easiest course for him would be to join the NRA and claim the gun control movement is all a secret plot by commies to enslave us all. The NRA would pay big bucks for that.

    Similarly, Bellesiles could have written a book with a different thesis that was pleasing to the NRA. You don't think the NRA would have given him tons of free publicity?

    TS simply doesn't think very well.

    --JadeGold

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  9. "So is this book going in the fiction section like his last one?"

    Funniest comment of the day by RuffRidr.

    It seems to me John Lott may very well have been as bad an example as Bellesiles, perhaps worse. The difference is, or one of the differences is, the viciousness and cohesion of the opposition.

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  10. "It seems to me John Lott may very well have been as bad an example as Bellesiles, perhaps worse. The difference is, or one of the differences is, the viciousness and cohesion of the opposition."

    Great start, Mikeb30200, you need to add "intellectual dishonesty" to that list. Like the birthers and the truthers, the gunnutz are perfectly willing to accept Lott's biased and unsupported assertions (a dog ate his homework, I think) while pointing a finger at Bellesisles who, rightfully--unlike Lott--has been taken to task for his shoddy "research".

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  11. Jade, I’ll explain my point again. Josh collects a salary for gun control. He has invested his whole livelihood into it. If gun control dies, so does his career. What I never said was he is only doing it for the money. Yes, absolutely there is more money in being pro-gun. Why? Because we have a hell of a lot more people who care on our side. The money doesn’t come from nowhere you know.

    Demo, your link wasn’t exactly what I was looking for. It is basically an op-ed piece slamming another op-ed piece. But hey if we are going to say newspapers/media should not publish op-ed pieces from authors that have lied… great! No more anti-gun op-ed pieces. Ever. I was thinking more like unbiased statisticians showing exactly how Lott’s analysis was faulty. One of the linkyloos was criticizing him for using data showing crime going down. Does he really have data showing it going up? Come on now.

    By the way Demo, I asked you this before but I don’t think I got an answer. Is Lott’s conclusion that more guns cause less crime, or that more guns doesn’t cause more crime?

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  12. Why? Because we have a hell of a lot more people who care on our side. The money doesn’t come from nowhere you know.

    No, but you do have an entire industry on your side. There's your profit motive.

    Again, folks like Sugarmann can make a lot more money simply by going to the other side. Additionally, your logic fails rather badly. You claim Sugarmann's career/life/etc. depends on gun control. Yet, we know folks at the NRA are far better compensated--doesn't this mean the NRA is doing it for the (better) money? After all, if I'm pulling in a half mil a year, I probably am more invested in my cause than somebody making far less.

    WRT Lott, here's a nice little summary.


    http://motherjones.com/politics/2003/10/double-barreled-double-standards

    WRT Lott's lost survey, which generated so much discussion about hard drive recovery---this misses the whole issue. Hard drive crashes can happen to anyone--we've all probably experienced several. So, I'm willing to accept Lott's HD crashed and he lost all his data.

    But here's where Lott's integrity comes into question. Lott claims he hired a number of undergrads to conduct the survey which interviewed nearly 3000 people over a period of 3 months. Yet, Lott cannot remember any of the names of the students he hired and he has no records (cancelled checks, etc) which indicate he paid anyone. To date, no student has come forward to say he/she worked on Lott's survey. Further, to date, only 1 person has stepped forward to say they were interviewed for the survey: David Gross, a gunloon activist.

    --JadeGold

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  13. I believe he was "swiftboated", which, of course, means "telling the truth about someone, when they don't want the truth known."
    Yep, he got swiftboated.

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  14. Jadegold: “Again, folks like Sugarmann can make a lot more money simply by going to the other side. Additionally, your logic fails rather badly.”

    You mean the logic where I said Josh is NOT doing it only for the money? I can’t help my logic from failing once it enters your brain and gets scrambled around.

    For the record, I believe Sugarmann passionately hates guns, but who knows if he would put in MikeB-like effort without a paycheck. Hopefully we'll see VPC go under so we can find out.

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  15. Jadegold: “No, but you do have an entire industry on your side. There's your profit motive.”

    Interestingly enough, I don’t get paid by the gun industry. I pay them.

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  16. TS:

    So, you're saying that because you're paying them there is no profit motive. You're really not that stupid are you?

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  17. TS said, "I can’t help my logic from failing once it enters your brain and gets scrambled around."

    I seriously want to borrow that line and use it as my own. I'm still laughing. Wonderful!

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  18. Thanks to JadeGold, I say John Lott is outta here.

    "But here's where Lott's integrity comes into question. Lott claims he hired a number of undergrads to conduct the survey which interviewed nearly 3000 people over a period of 3 months. Yet, Lott cannot remember any of the names of the students he hired and he has no records (cancelled checks, etc) which indicate he paid anyone. To date, no student has come forward to say he/she worked on Lott's survey. Further, to date, only 1 person has stepped forward to say they were interviewed for the survey: David Gross, a gunloon activist."

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  19. "So, you're saying that because you're paying them there is no profit motive. You're really not that stupid are you?"

    I said I have no profit motive. Please don't call me stupid, Demo.

    MikeB, feel free to use the line at your discretion. Just put a "TM-TS" after it.

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  20. TS says, "I said I have no profit motive. Please don't call me stupid, Demo."

    He's right, Demo. There's no need to call names.

    I'm with Rodney King on this one.

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  21. I did not call him a name.

    He made a comment that is idiotic on it's face.

    When he can support his assertion, thus making it reasonable, instead of idiotic, I will withdraw my comment.

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  22. Democommie: “He made a comment that is idiotic on it's face.

    When he can support his assertion, thus making it reasonable, instead of idiotic, I will withdraw my comment.”

    Since my comment was that I don’t personally profit from the gun industry, what do I have to do to support my assertion? Do I need to send you a copy of my tax returns?

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  23. "Interestingly enough, I don’t get paid by the gun industry. I pay them."

    WAS your reply to this:

    "No, but you do have an entire industry on your side. There's your profit motive."

    Your answer is disingenuos or worse. You're attempting to say that you thought that someone said you, personally, have a profit motive. Like I said, that would be stupid.

    As for my links not being to your liking.

    Try this one:

    http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/lott.php

    which includes this link:

    http://islandia.law.yale.edu/ayers/Ayres_Donohue_comment.pdf

    and this link:

    http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/guns/lindgren.html

    And then there's this link:

    http://reason.com/archives/2001/05/21/more-guns-means-more-guns

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  24. Thanks demo. The case against John Lott is clear. He's outta here.

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  25. Democommie: “Your answer is disingenuos or worse. You're attempting to say that you thought that someone said you, personally, have a profit motive. Like I said, that would be stupid.”

    What you are doing here is reading into my statement that I was in turn reading into jadegold’s statement. No, I never thought someone was saying I have a profit motive. If you are going to look at my statement as an answer to Jade, then please look at the statement that Jade was answering:

    TS: “Why? Because we have a hell of a lot more people who care on our side. The money doesn’t come from nowhere you know.”

    Meaning the gun side has consumers- people who pay dues to the NRA and/or buy things from the gun industry. Some of these people are also grassroots activist who take time out of their day to fight for their rights. I happen to be one of those, and I’d be willing to bet most posters here fall into that category. I am glad we can clear up this point of confusion. I really don’t want you thinking I am disingenuous.

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