[ftp://ftp.shell.portal.com/pub/chan/research/suter/intro.txt] [Please contact Dr. Suter as: suter@crl.com for more info] Intro.txt From: Edgar A. Suter MD, Chair Doctors for Integrity in Research & Public Policy CIS:73407,3647 (uploaded at Dr. Suter's request) To: All interested Re: Guns... Junk science and law February 23, 1994 The outrageous deceptions of the victim disarmament lobby are known to many, but their deceptions and hysterical imagery still cloud the public debate. Recent Rolling Stone and Mother Jones articles parroted much of the prohibitionist's familiar junk science and law. Readers are encouraged to download and review pre- publication manuscripts of a series of articles that will begin appearing with the March 1994 issue (available March 10, 1994) of the Journal of the Medical Association of Georgia. "Guns in the Medical Literature -- A Failure of Peer Review" exposes the illogic, tortured data, and ignored data that has been the vaporous essence of the prohibitionist's "public health emergency" deception. The article is thoroughly referenced and guides readers to Kates' and Blackman's studies of outright data fabrication and lies in the medical literature on guns. "Guns in the Medical Literature -- A Failure of Peer Review" reviews representative samples of bias and incompetence in the medical literature on guns. Special attention is paid to the fallacies promulgated by Kellermann -- the father of the "43 times" and the "2.7 times" fallacies. "'Assault Weapons' Revisited -- An Analysis of the AMA Report" reviews all 28 of the available studies on assault weapons - 27 studies show that assault weapons are not and are not likely to become a problem. The 1 study that found otherwise, the only "study" considered by the AMA in it's position paper supporting the ban of semiautomatic weapons, was based on gun trace data. "'Assault Weapons' Revisited --An Analysis of the AMA Report" quotes the Congressional Research Service, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF), and the FBI to explain why gun trace data cannot be used for statistical purposes. All the issues related to the "assault weapon" hysteria are explored. "The Right to Keep and Bear Arms -- A Primer for Physicians" explores the deceptions and outright lies of prohibitionist claims that there is no individual right to arms and ammunition. As a representative sample of misinformation, this article exposes the half-truths and deceptions of Vernick and Teret in their December 1993 article on the American Journal of Public Health, the article cited by Mother Jones as supporting the prohibitionist view. "The Right to Keep and Bear Arms -- A Primer for Physicians" discusses not only Supreme Court case law and the historical basis of the right, but also discusses the racist and oppressive roots of gun control. Not only were Vernick and Teret out of touch with case law, they were unfamiliar even with the contemporary legal literature. Of 37 articles on the RKBA in the legal literature since 1980, 33 support the individual right view and dispute the "collective right only" view of the RKBA. Of the remaining pathetic minority of 4 articles, 2 were written by an employee of Handgun Control Inc., one by a non-attorney lobbyist for the National Coalition to Ban Handguns, and only one was a peer reviewed article. The reader is provided all 37 references and more. I hope that at least one enterprising reader uses the data from the three articles to compose a well-reasoned and thoroughly referenced rebuttals to the junk science and law parroted in Rolling Stone and Mother Jones. If a formatted 3.5" floppy disk and stamped, self- addressed envelope is provided, I will provide the files in either Macintosh Word 5.0 or MS-DOS Word Perfect 5.1 format. Unfortunately I can provide the graphs of the "Guns in the Medical Literature -- A Failure of Peer Review" article only in Macintosh FreeHand 4.0 format. Mail those or other requests to: Edgar A. Suter MD Doctors for Integrity in Research & Public Policy CIS:73407,3647 Thank you and best regards, Edgar A. Suter, MD [end]