Scientific American Still More About Political Propaganda Than Objective Truth

“Mass Shootings Will Keep Spiraling Upward without Big Changes in Gun Laws,” a Monday Scientific American citizen disarmament advocacy piece masked as knowledge clamors. “[D]espite the grip that gun politics have on U.S. lawmakers—a sharp break is needed from ‘business as usual’ gun laws to derail the exponential increase in mass-shooting murders.”

The writer behind this dire warning is Theodore Modis, “a physicist, strategist, futurist and international consultant [and] founder of Growth Dynamics, an organization specializing in strategic forecasting and management consulting.” In other words, he’s got street cred with decision makers, promulgated by Scientific American, which claims a monthly “reach” of over 9 million readers:

“We’re in the top 10 among MRI measured publications for readers with college degrees and #4 in postgraduate education [and] Our readers, vs. readers in competitive publication websites, are 4-6 times more likely to influence business spending across many key areas.”

That’s a lot of influencers being influenced. Incorrectly.

While Modis presents authoritative-looking graphs to create the appearance that his “findings” reflect a theory derived from observation, experimentation, and testing of evidence, it’s fair to wonder how much of that will be offset by a disclaimer admission at the end of his article:

“This is an opinion and analysis article, and the views expressed by the author or authors are not necessarily those of Scientific American.”

So, it’s not “science.” It’s not “knowledge.”

With that in mind, let’s examine Modis’ opinions, starting with his historical assessment:

“In subsequent decades both laws and wartime partly suppressed gun death numbers for some time, while relaxation of gun controls led to increases,” he declares.

Without qualifying his assessment of what caused the documented increases with, you know, proof, this is the old correlation equals causation logical fallacy. Because the other indisputable factor that has consistently increased since the National Firearms Act is “gun laws,” at the national, state, county, and municipal levels, not to mention innumerable, arbitrary and changing-with-the-political-winds “rules” imposed by unelected ATF bureaucrats usurping undelegated powers.

Modis is aware of the progression, though. Recalling the St. Valentine’s Day Massacre, he notes laws historically “came in response to an upward deviation of gun deaths.” That’s also known as “blood dancing,” wherein gun prohibitionists in politics and the media stand ever ready to exploit sensationalist mass killings under the Rahm Emanuel axiom that “You never let a serious crisis go to waste.”

“Most likely the Bipartisan Safer Communities Act signed into law by Biden on June 25, 2022, and possibly other similar legislation will reverse the overall gun death trend,” he surmises in an astounding leap from pretend science to outright wishful thinking/calculated deception.

How? What metrics were used to conclude “most likely”? And why doesn’t this feel like rain?

“Mass shootings,” however, are a different “species,” Modis asserts, where “Gun-control measures have little impact.”

So, what’s his “solution”?

“[U]nprecedented action is required,” Modis asserts:

“This may entail substantial changes to the American Constitution, or its interpretation, or wider weapons bans than the one that expired in 2004. Without actions of this magnitude, we must anticipate ‘business as usual,’ with the curve persisting exponentially as projected.”

Yeah, uh, how about “No”?

Absent from all Modis’ calculations are any considerations for hardening preferred targets in “gun-free zones” like schools. There’s also no acknowledgment that per the gun prohibitionists themselves, “two-thirds of mass shootings [are] linked to domestic violence” and, per the Journal of Women’s Health, “In the United States, intimate partner violence (IPV) against women disproportionately affects ethnic minorities. Further, disparities related to socioeconomic and foreign-born status impact the adverse physical and mental health outcomes as a result of IPV, further exacerbating these health consequences.”

“Over HALF of Mass Shootings are GANG VIOLENCE (Proven),” the National Association for Gun Rights claims (noting that overlap does not necessarily contradict the two-thirds domestic violence claim), and they provide an interesting compilation of reported incidents to back their hypothesis up. Meanwhile, the position of self-appointed media arbiters (who come up with their own definitions different from the FBI’s and use complicit media to hide inconvenient truths) is to spread the narrative that “Gang-related shootings tend to not fit that definition.”

They must, you see, because otherwise, word might spread that, as economist and author John Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center demonstrates, “Murder isn’t a nationwide problem. It’s a problem in a small set of urban areas, and even in those counties, murders are concentrated in small areas inside them…”

That, in turn, would indicate what this country really has is a select Democrat constituency problem, and the solution has nothing to do with changing the Constitution or trying to disarm tens of millions of citizens whose ability to coexist peaceably with firearms is consistent and observable day after day and year after year.

As long as we’re on the subject, it would be remiss to ignore the Number One historical perpetrator of mass casualties that Modis also manages to completely ignore, governments that have imposed a monopoly of violence. It might also help, if he’s seriously proposing a ban on  semiautos, to flesh out the resources, efforts, manpower, and time he estimates that would take, and what he figures the casualty count would be if, say, just three percent of gun owners said “No.” And don’t forget it would still have no impact on the current violent criminal population that has avoided the “background checks” and other prior restraint indicators that confiscation targets would be assigned from.

The sad truth is this is nothing new for Scientific American. Back in 2018, we saw another hit piece, this time on “white men stockpiling guns.” Consider that a piece of a larger agenda, “world government… to stave off climate catastrophe.”

Did I mention that Modis claims Greek and Swiss nationalities?

And gun-grab advocacy is nothing new for popular “science” publications. We’ve also seen the “respected” journal Nature forced to issue a rare (and incomplete) “correction” when they repeated a false accusation against me for objecting to an anti-gun “researcher” creeping on gun show dealers and attendees. And plenty more examples of agenda over truth — in all fields of science — can be readily found.

Such thinly disguised propaganda not about science. It’s about promoting an unchallengeable state and smearing anyone advocating for individual freedom as a fascist, a hater, an extremist, a domestic terrorist, and as a legitimate target for “authority” to take out. But don’t take my word for it.

Meet Holden Thorp, “Editor-in-Chief, Science Family of Journals, Professor of Chemistry and Medicine at George Washington University, who realized his rabid and public anti-gun psychopathy had gotten the better of him when he tried to delete his real sentiments only to learn the internet is forever:

“The @NRA and everyone who supports them should burn in hell.”

That’s the goal. But first, they’ve got to blind with “science,” and then deal with the critical mass of gun owners who still see clearly.

About David Codrea:

David Codrea is the winner of multiple journalist awards for investigating/defending the RKBA and a long-time gun owner rights advocate who defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He blogs at “The War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance,” is a regularly featured contributor to Firearms News, and posts on Twitter: @dcodrea and Facebook.