More statistics, less truth!

I have been taken to task for my post about guns the other day:

Eric Scheie argues that statistics about guns and crime “have no bearing on basic constitutional rights”. I?m afraid that all the pro-gun folks who have based arguments on Lott?s statistics would seem to disagree with him.

Well! If there’s one thing I can’t stand, it’s when I’m told that people only seem to disagree with me!
And as if that wasn’t enough, a commenter then zeroed right in on me, lambasting the theme of my beloved blog with an accusation that not only do I think distorted thoughts, but I then insinuate them into the ancients!

Comment/Excerpt: Eric Scheie apparently thinks distorting the meaning of the 2nd Amendment is a classical value.

Immortal gods! They’ve put words in my mouth! I swear before Jupiter that I think no such thing!
After such a grueling one-two, I felt obligated to reply (in the comments section), and here is what I said:

I don’t mind having the (apparently monolithic) “pro-gun folks” disagree with me — although of course I admit that these statistics can be and are used for political ends. That’s what you’re doing, after all. My point is simply that the Second Amendment does not need the help of statistics any more than does the First Amendment — nor are either undermined by statistics. (These debates are silly window-dressing anyway, because the truth is that you guys want to take away my guns, and I want to keep them.)
As to “distorting the meaning of the Second Amendment” as a classical value, well, I can’t cite the ancients on firearms, so the founders are the best I can do. Here then, are some “classical distortions” for your consideration:
Sam Adams: “The Constitution shall never be construed to prevent the people of the United States who are peaceable citizens from keeping their own arms.”
–Samuel Adams, during Massachusetts? Convention to Ratify the Constitution (1788).
Patrick Henry: “The great object is that every man be armed” and “everyone who is able may have a gun.” –Patrick Henry, in the Virginia Convention on the ratification of the Constitution. Debates and other Proceedings of the Convention of Virginia,…taken in shorthand by David Robertson of Petersburg, at 271, 275 2d ed. Richmond, 1805. Also 3 Elliot, Debates at 386
Jefferson: “A strong body makes the mind strong. As to the species of exercises, I advise the gun. While this gives moderate exercise to the body, it gives boldness, enterprise and independence to the mind. Games played with the ball, and others of that nature, are too violent for the body and stamp no character on the mind. Let your gun therefore be your constant companion of your walks.”
— Thomas Jefferson to Peter Carr, 1785. The Writings of Thomas Jefferson, (Memorial Edition) Lipscomb and Bergh, editors.
Madison: “[The Constitution preserves] the advantage of being armed which Americans possess over the people of almost every other nation…(where) the governments are afraid to trust the people with arms.”
—James Madison,The Federalist Papers, No. 46.
Rick’s concern may be grounded in the notion that the militia language allows only the federal National Guard to be armed. Nice distortion, but hardly classical:
“A militia when properly formed are in fact the people themselves . . . and include all men capable of bearing arms . . . To preserve liberty it is essential that the whole body of people always possess arms.”
–Richard Henry Lee, Additional Letters From the Federal Farmer 53 (1788).
Nor is such a construction of the Militia clause correct gramatically. (See http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel051601.shtml for an interesting discussion.)
Thank you for the link, and for visiting my blog!

I am no constitutional scholar, but I was really delighted to read this remark by a distinguished one, Glenn Reynolds:

[Lambert is] wrong, however, to suggest that Lott’s accuracy bears on the constitutional right to bear arms, though it may bear on the policy question of whether concealed weapons reduce the crime rate or not.

Damn right. If statistics governed the constitution, next they’d claim that hate speech “is associated with” violence, or pornography “is associated with” rape and therefore, “more censorship means less crime.”
If this country followed its constitution, I would not be worried about such statistical nonsense (much of which runs afoul of the logical fallacy of post hoc ergo propter hoc). But if my dim memory of Con Law serves me, the Supreme Court has been known to resort to policy arguments to decide constitutional questions — doubtless with the help of reams of statistics.
What most annoys me about all gun statistics is that none can take into account the number of times guns prevent crimes which went unreported because they never occurred. If a burglar sees a National Rifle Association sticker on a home, or a mugger sees a holstered gun on a potential victim and these criminals fail to commit the crime, not only will there be no crime to report, but the “victim” will never even know a crime was prevented. Are gun stores robbed (I do not mean night-time burglaries) as often as liquor stores? Is there a reason for this? Did the presence of guns have anything to do with it? Did the criminals have common sense? There is no way to know, because one cannot know what did not happen. Thus, there is no reasonable way to know the number of times not only that guns thwarted crimes, but where no crime occurred at all. (An unreported crime is not the same thing as an uncommitted crime, of course, because of the complete unknowability of the latter.) Because of this problem, any study involving only reported crimes is by definition inherently based on a biased sample.
I do not need statistics to tell me that criminals are more likely to prey on the weak, or that an unarmed citizen is weaker than an armed one.
So, even if I believed in the relevancy of statistics to judging the correctness of the constitution (which I absolutely do not), I would distrust their accuracy as to guns.
Notwithstanding these reservations, I am not against all use of statistics. There are innumerable good uses for them, and as Dean Esmay commented, they “have been hugely useful in solving major social problems.” It strikes me that the real value of statistics is to assist honest thinking, not advance partisan politics. Practitioners of the latter use statistics as drunkards use lampposts; “for support, not for illumination.”
Statistics for illumination? As an aid to honest thinking? In the context of the gun debate it sounds laughable (as it is in politics) but here’s how (in theory) it might work:

It’s a kind of scientific integrity, a principle of scientific thought that corresponds to a kind of utter honesty — a kind of leaning over backwards. For example, if you’re doing an experiment, you should report everything that you think might make it invalid — not only what you think is right about it: other causes that could possibly explain your results; and things you thought of that you’ve eliminated by some other experiment, and how they worked — to make sure the other fellow can tell they have been eliminated.
Details that could throw doubt on your interpretation must be given, if you know them. You must do the best you can — if you know anything at all wrong, or possibly wrong — to explain it. If you make a theory, for example, and advertise it, or put it out, then you must also put down all the facts that disagree with it, as well as those that agree with it. There is also a more subtle problem. When you have put a lot of ideas together to make an elaborate theory, you want to make sure, when explaining what it fits, that those things it fits are not just the things that gave you the idea for the theory; but that the finished theory makes something else come out right, in addition.
In summary, the idea is to give all of the information to help others to judge the value of your contribution; not just the information that leads to judgment in one particular direction or another.

Sounds great, but I don’t expect to see it in this debate. In politics statistics are little more than weapons.