Mr. Fritchey demonstrates the problems of trying to conduct a serious debate about Arming America. Innuendo, accusations, and lies are passed on by Professor Bellesile’s critics as if they were true. Mr. Fritchey says, "All of the published work I've seen so far shows that Bellesiles' "errors" were in favor of his thesis. Every time." Mr. Fritchey surprisingly neglected to read Bellesile’s "Disarming the Critics." In it, he pointed out that a Boston Globe’s correspondent’s account of Bellesile’s mistakes in counting guns in more than one case found that Bellesile’s had counted guns where there were none, in fact. Those errors were not in line with his thesis.
Also, Mr. Fritchey asked, awkwardly, "Please, show one fact that was pointed out as false by any of Bellesiles critics was actually true." Again, if you had bothered to do your own fact checking, you would have discovered in Emory’s ad hoc panel’s report, page 15 on my summary, "In his Yale Law Review article he (Professor Lindgren) claimed that Bellesiles had reversed the numbers (regarding armed versus unarmed militia). In this case, Bellesile’s number was right." This is a surprising admission from the committee, given the overall adversarial tone of its report. Was that mistake by Lindgren a lie? Sloppy scholarship, perhaps? Given the countless number of hours that Professor Lindgren has devoted to his attack scholarship (does he work at Northwestern anymore?), I am surprised that he would be that careless if it were not deliberate.
So you can quickly see the monumental obstacles anyone would have in trying to conduct a serious scholarly debate with so much misinformation, innuendo, false charges, and ignorance shown here. It may serve the purposes of the gun lobby since they have strength in numbers, but it doesn’t serve the cause of truth or justice, both of which already have been sacrificed.
by Benny Smith on December 18, 2002 at 9:46 PM