Gun control advocates have spent a great deal of time and money trying to prove that their religious crusade is scientific. The result of this has been a seemingly endless stream of shoddy research. Their latest study tried to argue that nine percent of Americans have anger issues and easy access to firearms:
Almost 9 percent of American adults — or about 22 million people — have a history of impulsive angry behavior
and have easy access to at least one gun, according to a study published last week in the journal Behavioral Sciences & the Law. Furthermore, about 1.5 percent of people — about 3.7 million people — have impulsive anger issues and carry guns around with them when they are outside their homes.
What does the study mean by impulsive angry behavior? The paper is locked firmly behind a pay wall, like most of these studies, so it’s anybody guess unless they pony up. None of the articles discussing this research firmly define what impulsive angry behavior is and therefore the term is useless as it could mean anything from yelling at a misbehaving child to punching an unruly drunkard.
But this study has a major flaw:
(People whose job required them to carry a firearm, such as police officers, were excluded from the study.)
Why would a study about anger management issues and access to firearms leave out a portion of the population known for having anger management issues and access to firearms? The only reason I can come up with is that gun control advocates don’t want to ruffle the feathers of police officers because they know police officers are necessary to enforce any form of gun control. Therein lies the fallacy of gun control. Gun control requires guns to enforce and it is therefore not about controlling access to firearms but monopolizing it.
If you want to study the affects of anger and firearm access you can’t omit police officers. They are the perfect demographic for such a study because they also suffer almost no consequences when they act on their anger, which means you get a glimpse at what people with anger management issues really want to do with firearms. Without including them you can’t begin to estimate the impact consequences have. Somebody who suffers from impulsive angry behavior, whatever that is, and has access to firearms may pose no risk whatsoever because they still realize that there are consequences to using a firearm to act on their anger. Had the study included police officers one could estimate the value consequences have at preventing people who suffer from impulsive angry behavior from acting on their anger.
Leaving out the affect consequences have on behavior renders the study irrelevant. The researches could’ve asked people with impulsive angry behavior if they have access to an automobile and still learn nothing because asking that question doesn’t establish the affect consequences have at preventing them from ramming their vehicle into another vehicle that just cut them off.