Flawed Research Blames Police Deaths On States With Most Gun Ownership

By Bob Owens

David Swedler of the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health is the darling of the anti-gun media today with an “old” data report (1996-2010) which claims law enforcement officers are most likely to be killed in those states where most people own guns.

NBC News was among the news outlets willfully taken in by Swedler’s claims:

Police officers are most likely to be killed in states where the most people own guns, a new study finds.

The report is sure to be controversial, but it adds a new dimension to a conversation that’s recently been focused more on police shootings of unarmed Americans.

This study looks at who’s killing the cops, and it’s overwhelmingly people with private guns, David Swedler of the University of Illinois at Chicago School of Public Health found.

“If we’re interested in protecting police officers, we need to look at what’s killing them, and what’s killing them is guns,” says Swedler.

Bearing Arms interviewed several guns in response to Mr. Swedler’s claims, including a Beretta 92FS, a Springfield Armory XD, and a Walther PPQ, asking the three handguns if they had any particular animosity towards law enforcement officers.

In response, the three handguns merely sat there, primarily because …read more