re: #307 Obdicut

Can you explain how 19th century data affects the data from the 1700s, and can you link to an academic discrediting that book?

It looks like Bellesiles was reprimanded by Emory University.

So far, the energetic debate about Mr. Bellesiles, scholarship and second chances on academic and education Web sites has focused mostly on his 2000 book, “Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture.” It argued that most Americans did not possess firearms until after the Civil War, a radically different interpretation of the country’s gun-owning history and one that entangled him in the bitter and shrill argument over Second Amendment rights.

The ideological debate turned into a scholarly inquiry when critics pointed out several significant errors in fact and sources. An independent panel of three prominent historians concluded in 2002 that Mr. Bellesiles was “guilty of unprofessional and misleading work,”and raised questions about falsified data. Columbia University’s trustees took back the Bancroft history prize it had awarded the book, and Mr. Bellesiles resigned from the faculty at Emory University.