Guns in the Medical Literature -- A Failure of Peer Review

by Edgar A. Suter MD

Chair

Doctors for Integrity in Research & Public Policy

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Abstract

Errors of fact, design, and interpretation abound in the medical literature on guns and violence. The peer review process has failed to prevent publication of the errors of politicized, results-oriented research. Most of the data on guns and violence are available in the criminological, legal, and social sciences literature, yet escapes acknowledgment or analysis of the medical literature. Lobbyists and other partisans continue to promulgate the fallacies that cloud the public debate and impede the development of effective strategies to reduce violence in our society. This article examines a representative sample of politicized and incompetent research.

Next Section -- Introduction,

Contents

Contents:

• Abstract
• Introduction
• The benefits of guns are the lives saved, the injuries prevented, the medical costs saved, and the property protected -- not the burgular body count...
  • the "43 times" fallacy
  • The "43 times" fallacy becomes the "2.7 times" fallacy...
• "Proving" a foregone conclusion...
• Where is lawful self-defense "murder"?
• Why are the Black and Hispanic homicide rates so high in Seattle?
• Foretelling the future - gun prohibitionists and criminals share a crystal ball...
• Aberrant data, illogical analysis, weak analogies, and gross exaggerations are not a basis for public policy...
  • aberrant and sculpted data
  • illogical conclusions
  • harmful and unconstitutional nostrums
• The new prohibition -- enforceability and constitutionality
• Conclusions
• Endnotes

Publication note:

"Guns in the Medical Literature: A Failure of Peer Review" appeared in the March 1994 Journal Of The Medical Association Of Georgia, 83(13). The version presented here is from a January 1994 draft and contains some material that did not appear in JMAG.

Graphs 1-5, 10-13 and 16-18 were scanned by John Grossbohlin (john.grossbohlin@hvbbs.com) from the JMAG version. Note that the legend in graph 3 has been corrected in the scan: the labels for the two curves were reversed in the printed version. Graphs 6-9, 14 and 15 were scanned (using fax) from the January version by Jeff Chan, who also restored the title in Graph 16. Graphs are numbered differently in JMAG.