Obama Says Science Over Ideology, But Does it Apply to Guns?

The Associated Press is reporting that President Obama signed a memorandum today "restoring scientific integrity to government decision-making." The president's statement included these words:

Today, more than ever before, science holds the key to our survival as a planet and our security and prosperity as a nation. It’s time we once again put science at the top of our agenda and worked to restore America’s place as the world leader in science and technology. (emphasis added)

While many people across the nation, and perhaps the globe, breathed a collective sigh of relief, one has to wonder if this fact based scrutiny will be applied across the board or just to projects and special interests close the President's heart. This statement was released in conjunction with the administration's reversal of the Bush era stem cell research limitations, so clearly it applies to that. A bit of peeking into Obama's platform and some extrapolation would lead you to believe that it will apply to climate change as well.

So the question at hand is: will the restoration of science over agenda apply to less favorable issues such as firearms? As we have covered in the past, scholars such as Gary Kleck and John Lott have shown that more guns create less crime and concealed carry reduces crime rates. Those in opposition have at best been able to come to the conclusion that while laws such as concealed carry and castle doctrine may not reduce crime, they at the same time do not increase it in any way. The National Academy of Sciences also came to the conclusion that concealed carry at the very least does not increase crime or accidental shootings. (full disclosure: They do recommend additional research methods be undertaken to get more robust data. Conversely, one of the members in the study dissented with this finding, arguing that this argument is not made when the results more favorably support the Academy's position, i.e. capital punishment.)

If we take these studies, along with the evidence from the 38 States that have adopted shall-issue concealed carry, we would hope that President Obama will rethink his stated positions on "assault weapons" and concealed carry. We encourage the administration to err on the side of personal freedom and look to the scientific research we have on hand to support him when facing the anti-gun component of his party. Hopefully, with this new scientific rigor, we will never again hear the President make statements such as these, which so boldly fly in the face of science:

I am not in favor of concealed weapons, I think that creates a potential atmosphere where more innocent people could (get shot during) altercations.