Kim du Toit reports that Anheuser-Busch has withdrawn support for Missouri Gov. Bob Holden over his (overridden) veto of concealed-carry legislation, and Instapundit reports that the Centers for Disease control has released a report finding “no conclusive evidence that gun control laws help to prevent violent crime, suicides and accidental injuries in the United States.”
My favorite quotation from the article:
There are an estimated 200 million privately held rifles, handguns and other firearms in the United States, which guarantees the right to bear arms in its constitution.
Halleluja! (I wonder why Reuters didn’t use the UN’s significantly higher estimate of arms, but the admission that the Constitution guarantees a right to arms is a shocking admission from them.)
Least favorite quotation:
The CDC, a federal agency within the Department of Health and Human Services, is prohibited from using funds to promote gun control. HHS, however, is determined to reduce the rate of firearms-related deaths by about two-thirds by 2010.
Two-thirds of what? Two thirds of what it is now? What it was in 1994? What? And how does HHS (Health and Human Services) propose to go about it?
UPDATE: The Washington Post reports on this story here. Money quote:
Gun-control advocates quickly called on the government to fund better research.
What else is new?
Here’s the link to the study:
On the other side of the blotter, however, it appears that John “More Guns, Less Crime” Lott is in for a rough time. Several people are calling for a review panel to determine if academic fraud has occurred. Instapundit has a post concerning the Lott controversy, and there are several at the Volokh Conspiracy, plus Mark Kleiman comments. Throughout this whole thing, Tim Lambert has played the role Clayton Cramer did in the Bellesile’s “Arming America” affair, and he’s not happy with Clayton’s response in this one.
I first commented on the Lott controversy here.
UPDATE: Clayton Cramer comments on the Lott attackers, and makes some good points.
Unfortunately, defenders of Bellesiles made similar points (though considerably less factually accurate) about his attackers – until James Lindgren, a verifiably neutral party weighed in. And Lindgren is questioning Lott as well.
Just because Lott is being attacked by gun ban control proponents doesn’t mean he hasn’t played fast and loose with the facts.