Since the United States is a large country with nearly 200 million guns in circulation, there is plenty of, shall we say, ammunition for those seeking anecdotal evidence to support their views about guns. These views are largely polarized between those who believe that guns are primarily used to protect law-abiding citizens and those who believe that guns mainly serve to exacerbate lethal violence-both intentional and accidental-and encourage more frequent suicides. Every day is likely to produce some gripping anecdote about how a gun can be used defensively to thwart criminals, as well as some wrenching account reflecting the frightening misuse of guns. A major goal of scholarly research in this area is to move beyond mere tendentious recitation of anecdotes to establish the true costs and benefits of guns.

Those who have followed the troubling tales of alleged misconduct in academic research by gun researchers Michael Bellesiles (from the left) and John Lott (from the right) may draw the conclusion that in America the topic of guns is so ideologically charged that no researcher can be believed. While Gresham’s Law may be operating in the public’s attitude toward gun research, this is unfortunate because there are indeed some very serious researchers in this domain, of whom Phil Cook and Jens Ludwig are among the most important. It would be a sad fact if the cloud that Bellesiles and Lott have cast over all gun research limited the influence of Cook and Ludwig’s careful and measured scholarly work.

For those who missed the contretemps, the left-leaning historian Bellesiles wrote a book suggesting that the gun culture was far less prevalent in Colonial America than previously believed. Bellesiles’s book received widespread praise in certain circles, but allegations soon surfaced that Bellesiles had manufactured some of his data. After Emory University, where he was a tenured professor, convened a committee to look into the allegations, Bellesiles ended up losing his job (although he continues to insist that at most he was sloppy in his historical work). John Lott, who has championed the view that more guns lead to less crime, was also accused-by one of Bellesiles’ major accusers, Northwestern Law Professor James Lindgren, as well as by the eminent sociologist Otis Dudley Duncan-of manufacturing data to support his claim that 98% of the time, merely brandishing the gun was enough to terminate a violent attack. The point was important because critics of the “more guns, less crime hypothesis” noted that if defensive gun use were as prevalent as Lott has claimed-he accepts claims that there are roughly 2.5 million defensive gun uses per year one would expect that there would be far more dead criminals lying around than the relatively meager number (less than 170 per year) that the federal government identifies in the Uniform Crime Reports. Cook and Ludwig find that a more reasonable estimate is “that there are about 100,000 instances per year in which someone uses a gun to defend against an assault or break-in.”

Interestingly, while Bellesiles has been severely penalized, Lott has avoided any negative repercussions, perhaps because his employer, the American Enterprise Institute, has steadfastly refused to accede to suggestions-such as that made by the editor of the prestigious journal Science-that it impanel a committee of scholars to investigate Lott’s behavior. Indeed, if Lott were an academic, one would assume that his school would follow Emory’s lead and convene an investigative committee to sort through the charges of academic misconduct and evaluate Lott’s denials that he manufactured the survey allegedly supporting the 98% brandishing figure. The episode may suggest that the opinions of those laboring at institutions that are unwilling to enforce the highest standards of scholarly integrity should trade at somewhat of a discount.