Some thoughts on credible and incredible critiques of research on gun violence from my Gun Culture 2.0 blog of possible interest to the “gun curious.”
Imagine my surprise this morning when I saw an incredible claim circulating that researchers from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health had conducted a study of fatal mass shootings in the United States but had “omitted one of the most often cited mass shootings in U.S. history.”
As it turns out, this claim actually was in-credible, as in, not credible.
Screen cap of https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/02/18/johns-hopkins-study-no-evidence-assault-weapon-bans-reduce-mass-shootings/ on 2/19/2020.
I don’t read Breitbart so I don’t know if this error represents a legitimate mistake or a pattern of Kellyanne Conway-esque “alternative facts.” But I learned of the Breitbart article through another blog I follow, so I do know the error is already reverberating through the pro-gun echo chamber online.
Screen cap of https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/02/18/johns-hopkins-study-no-evidence-assault-weapon-bans-reduce-mass-shootings/ on 2/19/2020.
Insofar as the author of the Breitbart piece cited the Johns Hopkins press release rather than the (open access, publicly accessible) original…
View original post 661 more words
Gun Curious 