Better Late Than Never, Growing Numbers Of Americans Realizing Importance Of Self-Defense

by Larry Pratt

One of the good things that has occurred in the wake of the
murderous terrorist acts of September 11, 2001, has been that a
growing number of Americans are realizing the importance of
self-defense.

Important, because more than ever people are realizing that the
government cannot protect them.

The Washington Post (10/2/2001) reports that area gun dealers and
law enforcement statistics reveal that fear of suspected terrorists
living in their communities and the threat of more attacks has
caused “a surge in gun sales” following September 11. Many of the
buyers are said to be “buying firearms for the first time.”
Applications to buy handguns in Maryland more than doubled during
the week of September 11; Virginia State Police said background
checks on those seeking to buy handguns, rifles and shotguns were up
32 percent during this same time period.

The Post quotes one 29 year-old mother of a 4 year-old son — who
bought a handgun in Virginia but previously had never fired a gun
until now — as saying: “You don’t know what’s next, so you have to
plan ahead. It’s not to be taken lightly, but when you weigh that
against keeping your family safe, you have to.”

Also quoted by the Post is another Virginia resident identified only
as Tom who bought a 9mm semi-automatic handgun. He brought his wife
and 14 year-old daughter to a range for shooting practice. His wife
says she never thought they’d let their daughter practice with a gun
but now it is necessary.

NBC’s Today show (10/10/2001) reports that women across the country
are signing up in record numbers for gun safety courses, that “more
women than ever are taking matters into their own hands.” One
unidentified woman on this program says she will not rely only on
law enforcement to protect her: “But yet if someone is coming at me,
I feel that we should have as much security, knowing that if I’m
going to pick up a gun, I’m not going to be afraid to use it.”

NBC reporter George Lewis says that Mary Cummings, owner of the
Tactical Edge gun shop in West Palm Beach, Florida, says “business
is booming. It’s so brisk, in fact, women are even coming in during
lunch hour to buy guns and sign up for shooting classes.” Lewis, who
notes that gun sales to women increased more than 60 percent during
a three week period in some parts of the country, says “a lot of
women who feel insecure are heading for the nearest firing range.”

Time magazine (10/8/2001) says Marietta, Ohio, is the kind of place
where people hang signs on their porches that read: “THIS HOME
PROTECTED BY SHOTGUNS THREE NIGHTS A WEEK. WANT TO GUESS WHICH
NIGHTS?”

The Associated Press (10/2/2001) reports that after September 11 “a
rising number of Connecticut residents reached for a gun.” State
Police say that residents bought 5,397 guns in September — an
increase of 41 percent over September of last year.

Another Associated Press story (10/2/2001) about increased gun sales
in Virginia quotes Darren Guthrie, manager of All American Guns in
Fairfax, as saying that citizens are “finally waking up and
realizing that they are responsible for their own security.” And the
CBS Morning News (10/2/2001) reports that in California “gun sales
have jumped 42 percent.”

Also encouraging is the fact that airline pilots and passengers are
realizing the importance of self-defense. The Washington Post
(10/19/2001) quotes Gregg Overman, a spokesman for the Allied Pilots
Association in Ft. Worth, Texas — which represents 11,500 American
Airline pilots — as disagreeing with those who are against pilots
having guns. Overman says: “We favor lethal weapons.”

In a front-page story, the New York Times (10/11/2001) reports that
airline passengers are vowing to resist any future hijackers. This
story notes there is “a new breed of traveler” in the skies,
passengers like Gordon Langford who is quoted as saying he would “do
whatever it takes, or go down fighting.”

Another passenger, 245-pound Donald Avery, is quoted as saying:
“It’s a sorry man that would sit still during a hijacking now. It
would be a bad idea for someone to try to hijack a plane while I’m
on it, I’ll tell you that. I think the American citizenry as a
whole, especially males, are pretty pumped about this now.”

The Times says interviews with passengers headed to a dozen
destinations “suggest that most people now believe that passengers
have the right, indeed the obligation, to act.” Nina Baker, flying
from Seattle to Salt Lake, says: “In the past, we allowed ourselves
to be passive victims because we figured it was safer. Now we know
it is not safer. I think anyone who’s out to hijack a plane now
should expect to be killed.”

In his excellent book, A Nation Of Cowards (Accurate Press, 2001),
Jeff Snyder says: “Our society suffers greatly from the beliefs that
only official action is legitimate and that the state is the source
of our earthly salvation…. As long as law-abiding citizens assume
no personal responsibility for combating crime, liberal and
conservative programs will fail to contain it.”

Well, it appears — at least in the short-run following September 11
– that an increasing number of such citizens are realizing that
that they have both a right and a duty, a personal responsibility,
to defend themselves. I hope and pray that this continues.

At the very least, so-called “homeland defense” begins at home. And
this means that against foreign or domestic terrorists we must
defend ourselves the same way our forefathers did — by having a
proper firearm for home defense and knowing how to use it.

Bellesiles’s Nightmare: Truth

by Larry Pratt

On January 14, 2001, Emory History Professor Michael A. Bellesiles,
author of Arming America: The Origins Of A National Gun Culture
(Knopf, 2000), was interviewed on radio station WBEZ in Chicago.
Among the other guests on this program was a critic of Bellesiles’
book James Lindgren, Professor of Law and Director of the Demography
of Diversity Project at Northwestern University.

At one point, when Lindgren was pressing Bellesiles regarding the
accuracy of some of the information in his book, Bellesiles said,
sneeringly, that he did not realize that Lindgren “was such a
significant legal scholar.”

Well, Prof. Bellesiles is now realizing just how significant a
scholar Mr. Lindgren is. In fact, Lindgren’s laborious, thorough and
indefatigable research — with which he has had valuable help from
his associate Justin Lee Heather — has blown huge holes in major
portions of Bellesiles’ book and is shredding its credibility. And,
better late than never, some in the national media are finally
paying attention to the courageous efforts of Lindgren/Heather.

In an article in the Boston Globe (9/11/2001), staff reporter David
Mehegan said his paper had reviewed substantial portions of what
Lindgren says are examples of Bellesiles stretching or distorting
the historical record to make his case. These examples include
Bellesiles’ use of 18th century probate records in Vermont and Rhode
Island. And the Globe itself checked into Bellesiles’ claim to have
studied certain records in San Francisco, “records county officials
say were destroyed by fire in 1906.”

Mehegan writes: “In each case, the records appear to support
Lindgren’s accusation and suggest a disturbing pattern of misuse of
data by Bellesiles in his book and in an article defending his
thesis which he published on his Web site.”

In his book and on his Web site, Bellesiles claims to have reviewed
probate records in San Francisco for the 1840s and 1850s. No way,
says Lindgren, since all such records were destroyed in the San
Francisco earthquake and fire. This Globe article quotes Ida Wong,
deputy clerk of the San Francisco Superior Court, as saying: “All
that we have here is 1907 and after. Everything before that was
destroyed.” The Globe says that in an interview, “Bellesiles said he
can’t remember exactly where he did his California research.”

The Globe reports that “serious questions” have also been raised
about an article Bellsiles posted on his Web site called “Men With
Guns” which seeks to support some of the findings in his book. In
this posting, Bellesiles discusses what he says are some Vermont
probate records which list gun ownership. But, Lindgren says
Bellesiles misrepresents the content of the original records. And
this Globe article says that its own examination of the original
Vermont probate records shows that Lindgren is apparently correct.

Here are six of what the Globe says are “many similar examples” of
what Bellesiles says the Vermont records from the 1770s and 1780s
say and what they actually say:

* Bellesiles version: He says one Cotton Fletcher had a “broken
gun.” The original record says only that he had “a gun.”

* Bellesiles: Isaac Cushman had an “old gun.” The original record
says “one gun barrel and stock.”

* Bellesiles: Samuel Crippin, “old gun.” The original record: “One
gun.”

* Bellesiles: Asher Culver, “2 old guns.” Original record:
“Firearm.”

* Bellesiles: Jonathan Mayo, “broken gun.” Original record:
Specific amounts of “gunpowder” and “leads.”

* Bellesiles: Abel Moulton, 5 muskets, “some old.” Original record:
“Firearms.”

When asked about these discrepancies, Bellesiles is reportedly
“mystified.” He tells the Globe: “I don’t know. I am very upset
about that. It’s a mystery to me. I might have looked at a different
record book. It’s an egregious error on my part.”

The Globe also reviewed some of the Providence, Rhode Island, estate
records and they, too, appear to confirm Lindgren’s findings.
Mehegan writes that, contrary to what Bellesiles has alleged, “there
were many estates of women [who owned guns], and few indicated guns
in poor condition.”

The Globe quotes Brandeis historian David Hackett Fischer, an
authority on early America, as saying of Bellesiles’ book: “There
are many questions raised about his use of probate records and other
materials. They are very serious criticisms. It cuts to the very
foundation of what he reports, and convincing answers are not coming
from him.”

Finally, to its everlasting shame, Columbia University earlier this
year awarded its prestigious, $4,000 Bancroft Prize in history to
Bellesiles for his wretched book Arming America. And in this Globe
article, another historian, Alan Brinkley, the chairman of
Columbia’s history department, still refuses to criticize
Bellesiles’ book. He says: “A book is a book and needs to be judged
on its own…. Any book that people set out to examine as this one
has been would be found to have errors in it. Whether in this case
they go beyond inadvertence and carelessness, I have no idea.”

But, this is a disgraceful reply. Why does Brinkley still have “no
idea” whether Bellesiles’ errors go beyond unintended mistakes and
being careless? I mean, many serious scholars substantively
criticized Arming America before Columbia gave this horrible book
the Bancroft Prize! So, why didn’t Brinkley investigate this
scholarly critique? Indeed, a book does need to be judged on its
own. And Arming America has been judged on its own. It has been
exposed as a dishonest fraud that deserves only contempt from
truthful, intellectually honest scholars.

Bellesiles’s Worst Nightmare: More Truth

by Larry Pratt

National Review magazine is another national publication which has
taken a close look at Michael A. Bellesiles’ book Arming America:
The Origins Of A National Gun Culture (Knopf, 2000) and found it to
be “disarmed by its own dishonesty.”

In an excellent example of investigative journalism, NR Editorial
Associate Melissa Seckora begins her devastating piece (October 1,
2001) by quoting Bellesiles as saying in his book: “America’s gun
culture is an invented tradition.” To which she replies: “Bellesiles
has done some inventing of his own. His book… is one of the worst
cases of academic irresponsibility in memory.”

For openers, Seckora looks at Bellesiles’ claim that he counted guns
in probate records of the estates of people who died in 1849 and ’50
or 1858 and ’59 in San Francisco. But, she says, his reported
research here is “based on nothing,” on data “that simply do not
exist. The problem is that… all [these] probate records… were
destroyed in the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire.”

Seckora quotes Rock Sherman of the California Genealogical Society
as saying: “I am unaware of the existence of any surviving San
Francisco probate files for 1849-1859. If this involves an
out-of-body experience, I’d like to know how to pull it off.”

Seckora says Bellesiles has embellished his story by saying he did
this probate research at the Superior Court in San Francisco. But,
the Deputy Clerk of this court, Clark Banayad, says flatly: “Every
record at [this Court] predating 1906 was destroyed by fire, or
other causes, in the 1906 earthquake.” Kathy Beals, author of three
books on San Francisco’s early probate records, says that “to my
knowledge, there are no official probate files in existence for
years prior to 1880, and only scraps from 1880 to 1905.”

When Seckora confronts Bellesiles, and informs him that the probate
records he says he used cannot be found at the San Francisco
Superior Court, he says: “Did I say San Francisco Superior Court? I
can’t remember exactly. I’m working off a dim memory. Now, if I
remember correctly, the Mormon Church’s Family Research Library has
these records. You can try the Sutro Library, too.”

But, once again (surprise!), Bellesiles appears to be in error.
Martha Whittaker, a reference librarian at San Francisco’s Sutro
Library, tells Seckora that the probate records mentioned by
Bellesiles do not exist. Whittaker says: “All official probate
records were destroyed by the San Francisco earthquake and fire
because the city hall burned down.”

As for that Mormon library, Elaine Haselton, supervisor of public
affairs there, tells Seckora that this library has an index of all
estates in probate in the city and county of San Francisco from
1850, but this index does not list information about gun ownership.
Haselton says: “The index only lists names and locations of the
actual probate records. It does not list possessions.”

Seckora notes that the previously mentioned Court and two libraries
are not the only places Bellesiles has said he used but turned out
not to have had the materials he said they had. He has said he did
some probate research at the Federal Archives in East Point,
Georgia. But, when this was checked, it was learned that these
Archives did not have what he said they had. OK, said, Bellesiles,
he might have been mistaken. His “new story” was that he went around
the country doing most of his probate research in over 30 different
county or state archives looking at original records, not microfilm
of the originals, as he first claimed.

Seckora says: “One wonders how he could have forgotten whether he
did his research in a single library near his office or in more than
30 archives around the country.” Good question.

Seckora quotes several scholars who have serious problems with the
accuracy of Bellesiles’ book. One of these individuals is Randolph
Roth of Ohio State University, the leading expert on homicide in
early America. He reportedly found “several major major problems”
with Bellesiles’ homicide counts. He says the only way a scholar can
fix his mistakes is if he shares his data and makes clear “exactly
what sources” he looked at. Roth adds: “Michael hasn’t done that
yet. That is a big problem.”

Finally, in an article distributed by United Press International
(10/3/2001), and written by Culture Correspondent Lou Marano, the
head of Emory University’s History Department, James Melton, it is
said that Melton and Emory College Dean Robert Paul “are troubled by
discrepancies between Michael Bellesiles’ citations and what
reporters have found in primary sources.” They have asked him to
write a point-by-point defense of his book Arming America.

In this UPI piece, when asked about some of the criticisms of his
book by Bentley College Professor Janet Malcolm, author of the 1994
book To Keep And Bear Arms: The Origins of An Anglo-American Right,
Bellesiles says that what Malcolm has said could be “the beginning
of what could be a constructive dialogue.” But, one more time,
Bellesiles is wrong. Any real “constructive dialogue” will be the
beginning of nothing. It will be the end of his academic career.