BELLESILES UPDATE: A reader sends a link to this speech of Sen. Zell Miller’s (D-GA), reproduced on the Atlanta Journal-Constitution’s website. Zell Miller does what many (though not all) historians have been too polite to do, and accuses Bellesiles of outright fraud. Excerpt:
A couple of years ago, an Emory University professor, named Michael E. Bellesiles wrote the most distorted view ever published about the role of firearms in early America. It was called “Arming America.”
It delighted anti-gun reviewers by claiming that colonial militias were ineffective, that settlers seldom engaged in hunting and that colonists had little interest in owning firearms. The New York Times gave it a glowing, almost giddy review of several pages, as did the other liberal media.
It would seem that, in Bellesiles’ America-in-Wonderland, colonists were a bunch of naive, wishy-washy peace nicks.
Well, tell that to the British Redcoats who tried to cross Concord Bridge!
Tell that to Thomas Jefferson who said, “No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.”
Or Samuel Adams who said, ‘The Constitution shall never be construed to authorize Congress…to prevent the people of the United States, who are peaceable citizens, from keeping their own arms.”
Tell that to James Madison, the Father of the Constitution, who explained that 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.”
And, Thomas Paine, the writer of Common Sense, that pamphlet that inspired the Revolution, who wrote “Arms discourage and keep the invader and plunderer in awe, and preserve order in the world.”
Or finally, Patrick Henry, who warmed us to “Guard with jealous attention the public liberty. Suspect everyone, he said, who approaches that jewel.”
In those words of Patrick Henry, I suspect Professor Bellesiles with the willful intent to kill the Second Amendment. But all his distortion, backed by all the anti-gun media in the world, cannot murder the founding fathers’ wisdom that no man be disarmed.
By the way, when other historians later began to really examine the Bellesiles book, which one early reviewer labeled as “the NRA’s worst nightmare,” these historians found he had actually made up much of his so-called research. Just made it up out of the thin air of anti-gun bias.
One of the most respected historians at Emory called the research “scholarly incompetence.”
And an inquiry is presently underway, as the dean of that university said this week, to address allegations of misconduct in research. An NRA nightmare? I don’t think so. But, my friends, that’s the kind of thing we’re up against, and it has come down to us – the Guardians of the Second Amendment – to ensure the preservation of our heritage.
A lot of readers have emailed me to say that they think Emory will just wait until the attention dies down and then issue a report that whitewashes the whole Bellesiles affair. I’ve doubted that all along, but things like this make it less likely.
UPDATE: Reader Nick Ludlum writes:
I’ve been following the Bellesiles matter on your site for some time now, in no small part because I actually attended Emory and took one of Michael Bellesiles classes (freshman lecture course on American history to the antebellum period). My thoughts on the man aside, the fact that Zell Miller is speaking out so vociferously bodes well for the future of academic integrity. Senator Miller taught at Emory for about a year or so after he left the Governor’s Mansion and a lot of old influential Georgians passed through Emory at one time. With Zell Miller coming out against him, its hard to believe this practitioner of fraud will have much time left. The only stumbling block may be the President of the University, William Chase, who’s integrity has been questioned in the past (on seperate matters).
Nonetheless, Emory is a proud institiution in Georgia and it’s hard to believe the alumni (if not the administration), will let Bellesisles dirty its name much longer.