By Don McDougall
The Anti-Gun left cheer – “We knew it all along!”
Fairfax, VA -(AmmoLand.com)- A pair of left wing shrinks showed people pictures of black and white people and found that their feeling about owning a gun was stronger after seeing pictures of the black person.
The people who did the study admit it is inconclusive, but that has nothing to do with how the anti-gun media portrays the story. Apparently holding that a person has a right to own a gun “..upholds whites as morally superior while ignoring the structural advantages of whiteness.”
I’ll be honest I’m not sure exactly what this means. It, however, appears to be pretty damning.
Given that black teens commit crime way out of proportion with their makeup of the population, that 83% of all murders with guns are minority gang or drug trade related, a protective instinct after seeing minorities is not racism it is self-preservation. Let me quote Reverend Jessie Jackson.
“There is nothing more painful to me … than to walk down the street and hear footsteps and start thinking about robbery, then look around and see somebody white and feel relieved.”
So Jessie Jackson is a white racist gun toting NRA member who hates black people? Who knew?
What we have here is two basic problems. One is Conformational Bias. The very fact you ask a question shows you have a bias.
“Hmm … I wonder if white people manifest their racism towards black people by supporting the 2nd amendment?” Asked Scientist #1
“I’ll bet they do!” says Scientist #2. “Let’s design a test to see if we’re right! I’ll get us a CDC grant to prove this and if it is anti-gun enough one of the big papers will pick it up, and we can get another grant next year!”
The very fact that you ask this question shows that you have a bias. This is why studies like this so often prove the exact point they were created to analyze. I’ve provided some background of Conformational Bias below.
The other big issue is that these “scientists” have no idea who the gun culture is in America.
That 40% of gun owners are women and an equal percentage minority. That competition shooting is one the rise. That the gun culture in America looks like America because it IS America. They assume one big ol’ loaf of Weber’s Bread, all white and squishy. Nothing could be further from the truth.
So let me close with some recommendations for questions they SHOULD have been asking.
Why does the African American Community have the lowest percentage of gun ownership but the highest murder rate with guns?
Do your test again, but use LeBron James as your black images and skinheads for the white people. I’ll bet you get different results.
There are 120 million gun owners in America, and that number is increasing by about 5% a year. What are the issues that are driving these decisions to own a gun?
Why don’t black people feel a need to see to their own personal defense?
You lefties cannot keep blaming the NRA for everything. The NRA is not the sales arms for gun manufacturers, you discuss and pontificate about a culture that you know little to nothing of except what you hear in your academic echo chamber.
Confirmation bias (or myside bias) is a tendency for people to prefer information that confirms their preconceptions or hypotheses, independently of whether they are true. People can reinforce their existing attitudes by selectively collecting new evidence, by interpreting evidence in a biased way or by selectively recalling information from memory. Some psychologists use “confirmation bias” for any of these three cognitive biases, while others restrict the term to selective collection of evidence, using assimilation bias for biased interpretation.
People tend to test hypotheses in a one-sided way, focusing on one possibility and neglecting alternatives. This strategy is not necessarily a bias, but combined with other effects it can reinforce preexisting beliefs. The biases appear in particular for issues that are emotionally significant (including some personal and political topics) and for established beliefs that shape the individual’s expectations.
**David Perkins, a geneticist, coined the term myside bias referring to a preference for “my” side of the issue under consideration. Baron 2000, p. 195
*Lewicka, Maria (1998). “Confirmation Bias: Cognitive Error or Adaptive Strategy of Action Control?” Personal control in action: cognitive and motivational mechanisms, 233–255, Springer.
About Don McDougall:
Don McDougall is an NRA instructor and member of the Los Padres “Friends of the NRA” committee. If he’s not at the range you will find him setting the record straight with on gun issues and gun safety on AmmoLand Shooting Sports News.
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