Gun Control & RKBA
In reply to the discussion: Point Click, Fire: An Undercover Investigation of Illegal Online Gun Sales [View all]DonP
(6,185 posts)Do you know who Micheael Bellisles, formerly of Emory University, is and what he did?
You really need to do more actual backgrounding on your sources and heroes.
The short version is ... he wrote a book title Arming America making primarily the claims in part you have cited. Gun control supporters were eager to embrace his findings; that America didn't really have a long history of private firearms ownership. He was awarded the prestigious Bancroft prize for history and lauded and made a spokesperson for the Brady bunch for a while.
A basic peer reveiew of his research turned up a large number of "inconsistencies"; like the claim that he had reviewed a large number of probate records in California from San Francisco in the late 1800's. One problem, the records he claimed to review were destroyed in the 1906 earthquake and the Chief Librarian in Costa County, (sp?), where they kept the records, said he had never even been there.
When asked for his notes as support for his findings, he claimed they had all been destroyed in a flood and all his hard drives were corrupted too.
They not only revoked the Bancroft award, but after a lengthy hearing by his fellow historians, he lost his tenure at Emory and was summarily fired and disgraced. His publisher pulled the book from circulation and several libraries actually moved it from "History" to "Fiction" to make a point.
Nice "Experts" you cuddle up to. Try again.