The Lancet applies lies to gun discussion

| March 11, 2016

The Lancet is probably most famous for their “study” which arrived at the conclusion that more than 77,000 US troops had died in the war against terror. That same “study” accused the Bush Administration of depositing more than 8200 tons of nuclear waste on the Iraqi landscape as depleted uranium-tipped tank rounds. Their little study was easily disproved.

Now, they’re at work on publishing a study on gun control. According to AFP, they claim that increased laws for background checks will reduce gun violence in the country from 10.35 to 4.46 out of 100,000 Americans. Conducting background checks on ammunition purchases would further reduce the incidence of gun violence to 1.99 per 100,000.

To arrive at those figures, Lancet claims that 40% of gun sales are private. They don’t bother to mention where they get they number, though. The 40% is an old statistic that dates back more than 20 years to the pre-Brady Bill days. More recent FBI statistics place private sales of firearms at less than 10%. Interviews with criminals already incarcerated for gun crimes put the number of private-sales guns used in crimes at less than 1%, including gun show-purchased firearms.

They also claim that background checks for people buying ammunition would reduce gun crime. I guess that means that folks who reload their own ammunition would have to comply with some new accounting process devised by the government. But then that would only apply to legitimate gun owners – I haven’t sen too many criminals who reload their own bullets.

They also claim that “gun identification” measures that would leave a distinctive marking on a shell casing tracing it back to a particular weapon would also reduce gun-related crimes. You know, as if criminals would worry about that with their unregistered, illegally obtained gun.

“Federal implementation of all three laws could reduce national overall gun deaths to 0.16 per 100,000,” said a press statement by The Lancet — a drop of over 90 percent cut.

The Lancet speciously figures that criminals would automatically begin to comply with laws on Day One of the implementation. That those guys selling guns from the trunks of their car and in dark alleys would check the criminal background of their customers. That all of the guns currently in use would disappear and everyone would purchase the new guns that distinctively mark shell casings.

Category: Gun Grabbing Fascists

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A Proud Infidel®™

WHAT the mudda-FUCK about all the existing laws that go almost completely unenforced? Oh wait, that makes sense and gets in the way of their attention-whoring.

2/17 Air Cav

I love it when people take their time to scrutinize research and polls results. I really do. Unfortunately, major media usually runs with the conclusion or outcomes in a 15-second bit. Then, the fun really begins as more and more bloggers, pundits, and commenters run with the conclusions and treat the studies or pols as gospel truth.

B Woodman

You remember what a lancet was originally for? For blood-letting, to relieve the “bad humors” in the body, so the person could bleed to death.

I suggest that The Lancet use a lancet on themselves, and relieve their “bad humors”. Repeat as often as necessary, preferably daily.

IDC SARC

Lancet and JAMA have been posting these types of articles with more frequency lately. It is disappointing to say the least when peer reviewed evidence based journals devolve to such idiocy.

Hondo

IDC SARC: given your background, I suppose you know precisely why the JAMA is running these articles with more frequency. The AMA and APA do indeed have an agenda – and it’s not pro-2nd Amendment.

A Proud Infidel®™

Speaking of the APA, remember their paper published about 15 years ago trying to normalize pedophilia? At least three State Legislatures passed resolutions condemning it, I remember Alaska and Oklahoma being two of them.

IDC SARC

yes, they called it intergenerational sex. They later apologized.

another push by within the APA by AA psychologists was for the inclusion of Post Traumatic Slavery Disorder…a diagnosis mitigating violent behavior in AA criminals.

I remember their posterchild was a man that picked his toddler son up by his feet and slammed him into a table, killing him.

It was obviously because of the reverberations of slavery.

IDC SARC

yes, they called it intergenerational sex. They later apologized.

another push by within the APA by AA psychologists was for the inclusion of Post Traumatic Slavery Disorder…a diagnosis mitigating violent behavior in AA criminals.

I remember their posterchild was a man that picked his toddler son up by his feet and slammed him into a table, killing him.

It was obviously because of the reverberations of slavery

*this comment may come up twice, I messed up my email earlier, apologies.

IDC SARC

test

IDC SARC

yes, they called it intergenerational sex. They later apologized.

another push by within the APA by AA psychologists was for the inclusion of Post Traumatic Slavery Disorder…a diagnosis mitigating violent behavior in AA criminals.

I remember their posterchild was a man that picked his toddler son up by his feet and slammed him into a table, killing him.

It was obviously because of the reverberations of slavery

IDC SARC

That may post twice^^^

I fukkered up my previous attempt.

Charles

Peer review is broken and has been broken for years. Between outright fraud of the fake reviewers to the fact they don’t even have time to actually test the process presented in the paper. The overall idea of “peer review” needs to be considered a logical fallacy now a days.
http://skepticalscalpel.blogspot.com/2016/01/more-evidence-that-manuscript-peer.html?m=1

CI

Why…dear god why…..cannot a single proponent of ‘universal background checks’ EVER define the enforcement mechanism of such a law? In other words, with UBCs, how will the State know if I transferred a firearm to another citizen without a background check?

A not so clever strategy to mask their real intention…registration.

Old Trooper

It would be passive enforcement i.e. you sell a gun to chucklehead who then uses it in a crime and is caught. They trace it back to you and you are on the hook. However, criminals, who have colorfully acquired a firearm; they don’t really care to do a background check on the other criminal they just sold it to.

CI

Except point of sale records wouldn’t necessarily even support passive enforcement; given that a lack of proof of a firearms transfer wouldn’t prove ownership…..without universal registration.

The push for UBC’s is a grand façade, since once passed….their ineffectiveness would be the next “loophole” to close.

Silentium Est Aureum

Gun identification measures? Like the kind they had in MD before they shut it down for being too expensive and useless?

And just in case anybody was curious, any guesses as to how many crimes were solved in the 15 years and millions of dollars spent to maintain the database? If you said ZERO, give yourself a gold star.

AW1Ed

Yep! The PRofM required an expended shell casing with each handgun sale for the data base, supposedly to aid police in identifying the owner from casings left at a crime scene. This type of evidence was used exactly once in a trial, and wasn’t even key to the case. They required a casing from my S&W 686, too; it’s a wheel gun. Idiots.

GreenEyedJinn

The Lancet…the same Benny Hill clown-car of SJWs masquerading as medical professionals that brought us (not any more) Dr. Andrew Wakefield and the fabricated story of vaccination causing autism.
50 years ago, anything published by The Lancet was considered to be truth for the latest medicals. Here is an institution so totally corrupted by SJW agenda makers, that NOTHING it publishes can be taken as legitimate.

Nicki

THIS!

Was about to post that myself. Glad someone remembers that!

Cowpill

I picked up a new AR-15 and a .45 acp at the auction a couple of weeks ago. They are sitting in my safe now. Haven’t hurt a soul AND I had to go through a background check, I thought that didn’t happen!?

Martinjmpr

They must be defective. Send them to me and I’ll dispose of them for you. No fee. 😀

The Dead Man

The Lancet is also infamous for being the birthplace of the anti-vaxer movement.

HMCS(FMF) ret.

Yes, they were…

Veritas Omnia Vincit

Once again proving the Lancet never met a left wing position it wouldn’t lie to endorse….

Charles

Just remember that the Lancet was behind the anti-vaccine craze when it published the Andrew Wakefield paper that said vaccines cause autism.

https://www.sciencebasedmedicine.org/lancet-retracts-wakefield-article/

They have also been busted publishing fake papers
http://articles.latimes.com/2006/jan/21/science/sci-briefs21.4

As well as being party to Payola for pharmaceutical companies

http://connection.ebscohost.com/c/articles/43246786/lancet-publisher-operated-fake-journal-division

It is shennigans Luke that which makes folks not trust the logical fallacy of appeals to authority that science wants and social philosophy demands

Jeff

We already tried a national registration for ammunition purchases back after the 68 gun control act. It was finally gotten rid of in the 80’s. Why cant these people ever remember history and that if a policy fails once it probably wont work the second time its tried.

Hondo

Why? Ignorance plus hubris plus deliberately ignoring inconvenient data plus longstanding practice. Remember “Never trust anyone over 30”?

Charles

The same reason that socialism is en vogue again. The wrong people were in charge and with better enlightenment from more observation the right people with the right ideas. They will fix this blight on American society.

Ex-PH2

Why? Because they don’t want to. It is an inconvenience.

Bill M

You might almost say it’s an “inconvenient truth.” Where have I heard that before???

Poetrooper

And the left wonders why we don’t trust their science on climate change?

Sheesh!

Ex-PH2

‘Gun identification leaves marks on the bullets’ – I think I read some place that the interior of every gun barrel leaves distinct markings on bullets as they pass through on their way to a target.

It was one way to prove that a particular weapon was used in committing a crime.

Or is that out of date now?

Martinjmpr

I believe what they are referring to is “micro stamping” technology that imprints an identifying mark not on the bullet (i.e. the projectile fired from the barrel) but rather onto the cartridge case. Obviously this would only work for firearms that eject cases like semi auto pistols, rifles or other repeating weapons. Single shot weapons and revolvers don’t eject cartridge cases (at least not automatically) so this technology wouldn’t help them.

There were a few states (NJ or NY or maybe MA?) that passed “Micro Stamping” laws but there are enough holes in that technology that you could drive a mack truck through them.

There have also been states (MD?) that require that every handgun (or maybe every firearm?) have a “sample bullet” fired and that bulled is then kept with the state police so that it may be compared to any bullet found at a crime scene (as you explained, the bullet will have a distinctive pattern of wear.)

Again, there are numerous technical problems with using this to prove that bullet X was fired by gun Y, the biggest one being that changing the barrel in most semi auto pistols takes, literally, seconds to do.

Last I heard the whole “keep a sample bullet so we can identify the gun used in a crime” program was rolled out with great fanfare and greater expense and has yet been able to solve a single crime.

David

No one has come up with a reliable microstamping process that works yet. The Maryland fired-case registry was abandoned when after over a decade in operation, no crimes were solved, as Silenteum above pointed out.

Rifling ID works pretty well on lower-speed bullets that aren’t mangled on impact, but many higher-speed projectiles tend to get pretty messed up when they hit bone.

Generally their whole argument is built on sand: UBCs only work when you have an enforceable universal registration database (which is REALLY their mid-goal – if you know where it is, you can confiscate it later), background checks on ammo purchases are ineffective but are great harassment, and even if the technology to microstamp existed, how will you retrofit the existing 200,000,000 guns? (Just confiscate ’em!) Their conclusions are based on wishful thinking and errors… leaving their conclusions as junk as their science.

AW1Ed

Please refer to my reply to SEA, above. The PRofM finally ceased the casing requirement for handgun sales and ended the program, saving about $1M tax payer dollars a year.

Hondo

Martinjmpr: MD had a fired shell casing program whereby every handgun sold had to provide a fired shell casing to local LE. It failed, and has been discontinued.

http://www.baltimoresun.com/news/maryland/bs-md-bullet-casings-20151107-story.html

Richard

It takes about 5 minutes to change the barrel on a bolt gun. Remove the bolt, tighten the clamp on the barrel vice, insert action wrench and pop the receiver loose, unscrew the old barrel, insert the new barrel, tighten in the barrel vice, and tighten receiver with action wrench. Bolt guns are rarely used in crimes so – never mind.

It takes about 15-20 minutes to change the barrel on an AR. Remove the front sight and gas tube, remove the front grip or rail, clamp it in a barrel vice, remove the barrel nut, insert new barrel, tighten the barrel nut, replace the front sight and gas tube, replace the front grips. ARs are rarely used in crimes so – never mind.

Shotgun barrels are not rifled so – never mind.

Changing a barrel on a 1911 is simple, field strip the gun, when reassembling, use a new barrel. Same with most semi-auto pistols.

Most revolver barrels are securely attached to their frames.

By the way, semi-auto pistol barrels are not controlled parts and they are cheap. Anyone can buy one and have it shipped through the mail.

David

Not sure how your logic works – the effort needed to change a bolt gun barrel is probably even more (due to finish reaming the chamber and headspacing). If you can do all that in 5 minutes on most bolt guns, you are a far better gunsmith than most pros. I suspect from your characterization of just swapping out the 1911 barrels that I would not like to buy a gun from you.

Candle

I apologize for being OT but, this needs to be noticed. Not being reported on normal news, while there are troops on the ground in Libya, our “CiC” verbally attacks Britain. Supposedly calling it a “shit show”. And THEN he of all people, states that he is “opposed to free riders” /snort
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/barack-obama-says-david-cameron-allowed-libya-to-become-a-s-show-a6923976.html

Medic09

The Lancet has been highly, and leftly (I just made that word up), politicized for years. Take a look sometime at things they’ve published about Israel with no fact-checking or context.

Silentium Est Aureum

Note that they’re also the same people who claim we killed 700k people in Iraq by 2007.

Uh, yeah. No.

Harry

This study is so broken that even the Guardian questions it.

http://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/mar/10/gun-control-study-flawed-researchers

Martinjmpr

77,000 troop deaths in Iraq? Um, is the Lancet a branch of Veterans Today? Do they also talk about secret moon bases?

Bill M

Ssshhhhh! Secrit Moon Base A3872JJuU37P is hidden in a secrit crater just next to another crater. The first rule of Secrit Moon Bases is “don’t talk about Secrit Moon Bases.”

jonp

Ok, so a rag in a country that watched it’s own violent crime rate sky rocket after effectively banning firearms want’s to do the same to us and claims it will work here. This despite the few hundred million firearms running around the country? Lot’s of money in junk science if it says what elites want it to say.