March 24, 2016

More Women are Buying Guns or “Who are You Going to Believe …”

Ordinarily, we do not respond to quasi-journalistic electronic emanations from The Trace, which, as we have previously noted, is the wholly owned propaganda megaphone of the Michael Bloomberg funded anti-gun politburo of organizations. Be assured, we do not plan to make this a regular practice.

However, after we finally stopped laughing at the headline and the prose that followed, we decided that a response was warranted to “The Myth of the Rise in Female Gun Ownership.” Here’s why. It is a staple of gun control politics to work to diminish both the size and the ever increasing diversity of the firearm-owning American citizenry. The Trace provides just the latest example.

Their tactic is transparent and their preferred go-to source is the same General Social Survey that, as we pointed out last, year chronically, undercounts guns owners due to its own methodological limitations in contradiction to other research sources from Gallup polls to FBI background checks to NSSF-commissioned studies. All provide evidence that law-abiding Americans are embracing gun ownership at a much higher rate than the suspect GSS indicates.

But that wouldn’t serve the collective political agenda of the Bloomberg groups, would it? So for good measure the Trace also assails NSSF’s “Women Gun Owners: Purchasing Perceptions and Participation,” for citing a report asking firearms retailers to whom they are selling. Surprise, there are more women coming in as customers.

So, we would like to thank The Trace for linking to our report and hope that it gets a wider reading as a result, because if the currently confirmation biased can get beyond their confirmed biases they may learn some inconvenient truths. Whether they can or can’t, or will or won’t, however, we will stand by the well-explained findings in our report that The Trace so clearly cannot and will not accept.

Finally, in addition to having to believe a flawed data source and attacking NSSF for a survey with clear and generally accepted methodology but unwanted results, The Trace also asks its readers to discount CBS News, Fox News, Ad Age and dozens of local reporters nationwide (collectively, a “credulous press”) who have actually gone to firearms retailers and ranges to report that they see evidence of more and more women buying guns and taking up target shooting as a recreational activity.

In effect, The Trace is asking anyone who will actually do the legwork, or the research, the famous Marx Brothers question from the movie “Duck Soup” when Chico disguised as Groucho asks, “Who are you going to believe, me or your own eyes?”