Scientific Studies, Evidence and Ignorance

[amongwareth]

This comes up again and again for me... I just cannot understand why people, when confronted with actual scientific, peer-reviewed studies by reputable people and organizations refuse to accept that the results are valid.  Or that there might be something to consider.  

The latest came up when I read the results of a study saying that Missouri's gun violence rate increased dramatically after the 2007 repeal of a state law about background checks.  Doing some digging, what was repealed was a second requirement to obtain a handgun permit from the local sheriff, who was required to do his/her own background check in addition to the federal FBI's check.

Why is it so hard to accept those results?  Its not like the study is saying guns are bad or that we shouldn't sell them to people.  Its just saying that perhaps there was a benefit to having a second check that prevented people from getting hold of handguns so easily.  The repeal had nothing to do with rifles or any non-handgun type of weapon.  

And yet, people are so obstinate and willfully ignorant or something when it comes to the results.  Chalk it down to human nature?  To the growing divide between left and right?  Or what?  Why are so many people willing to believe some radio moron who provides NO evidence for their arguments at all instead of actual scientific studies with evidence?  

[Kulamata]

A variety of reasons I think.

Most obvious is financial advantage. Moving away from fossil fuels soon would mean leaving >$ 1 trillion in known reserves in the ground; ground that's been leased, or had mineral rights purchased, or surveyed and scanned, or been experimentally drilled. Very much to the advantage of some to whip up climate denial. (See the recent Exxon stories.) With respect to guns, last I heard it was the inexpensive high volume manufacturers that contributed the most to the NRA.

People come to believe something if it's repeated often enough. It just gets absorbed, and is no longer subject to the individual's cross-checking. Particularly so if it aligns with other beliefs; gummint interferes, gun-grabbers abound, slippery slope to confiscation, etc.

If something tends to contradict previously held beliefs, many simply cannot admit to the slightest possibility of having been wrong. It's threatening to their sense of self.

And of course the vast conservative media, ehhh, not so much conspiracy, as a vast interlocking of common goals. Fox, Wall Street Journal, National Review, ugly bloggers; you can go from breakfast to nightcap without having to encounter one iota of data that fails to comport with conservative shibboleths, or which might cause a twinge of cognitively dissonant anguish.

We have fewer newspapers by far, and the the two political parties are no longer "big tent" organizations. Most mass media, TV, radio, are dependent on not making waves; people are simply infrequently challenged by anything that might disturb...

[tantalyr]

And this naturally leads to Obama's announcement Tuesday of new gun control executive orders. Although I have yet to find in my Google searches the actual text of these new executive orders, from articles and columns I've read about their substance it appears to me that they are (to quote Shakespeare) much ado about nothing.

Most of the news coverage has been about closing the so-called "gun show loophole." In the first place, that supposed "loophole" is and has for over 40 years been largely a myth. Pursuant to the 1968 Gun Control Act (as amended over the years) anyone who "regularly" engages in the sale or purchase of firearms for profit is a "dealer" required to run a background check on every purchaser regardless of the location of the sale--whether from a shop, over the internet, at a gun show, on the street, etc. So Obama's action in having the ATF specify sales over the internet and gun shows merely (and at most) clarifies what the Gun Control Act has provided for years. See 18 U.S.C. Sec. 921. Just because some folks who by statute are defined as "dealers" don't register at gun shows or don't perform background checks for sales over the internet doesn't mean that their actions are, or have been, legal.

As is often the case, the devil is in the details. What constitutes "regularly engaging in the business" of selling firearms, as opposed to "occasional" sales of firearms--which are largely exempt from the Gun Control Act's requirements, is not defined in the Act. Nor have I been able to find any specific definition in the news articles about Obama's new executive order. Rather, it appears that Obama (and the ATF) are content to adopt the approach that it all depends on a variety of factors, including the frequency of firearms sales, the period of time over which those sales occurred, and whether such sales are to the public at large or so-called "street sales."

So, unless and until I can find the actual texts of Obama's executive orders--and anything new and unusual in them, I don't see that the new executive orders give much, if any, cause for gun enthusiasts to--pardon the pun--get up in arms about them.

[amongwareth]

It wasn't about that, as it preceeded Obama's statement, but yea it does lead to that. As with anything related to guns these days, you have a variety of opinions. You have a group claiming it will infringe upon their 2nd Amendment rights, when it does nothing of the sort. Its a sad state, this country is in. A largely ignorant population fed by the media, most of whom wouldn't know a fact if it bit them in the ass, or couldn't care less if it was a fact so long as it generated higher ratings.

Makes me sick. No way it gets better. Only gets worse if someone as polarizing as Hillary or Trump or Cruz gets elected.