CDC Deletes Reference to Dr. Gary Kleck’s Study to Please Anti-Gunners

I was raised to keep my mouth shut about things of which I have no personal knowledge or education.

I know guns. I grew up with guns. I own guns. I was trained to safely handle and use guns. I have fired guns in competition and while hunting, but I have never fired a gun at another person.

In a study from 1992, Dr. Gary Kleck, a criminology professor at Florida State University (FSU), found that a firearm is used 2.5 MILLION times a year for defensive purposes by law-abiding citizens.

The Kleck study drove anti-gun extremists crazy and they scrambled, unsuccessfully, to discredit it. 

Now they are attacking Dr. Kleck again, and the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) has deleted a reference to the study after gun-control advocates complained that it made passing new restrictions more difficult.

A news outlet (The Reload) reported that in a recent private meeting with CDC officials, gun control advocates complained about criminologist Gary Kleck’s work.

“[T]hat 2.5 Million number needs to be killed, buried, dug up, killed again and buried again,” said Mark Bryant, one of the attendees, in an email to CDC officials after their meeting.

Bryant argued that Kleck’s study has been damaging to the political prospects of passing new gun restrictions and should be eliminated from the CDC’s website.

Kleck’s study is compelling and based on facts. Criminals are not totally stupid, they don’t want to be shot, so they run away from armed citizens. In fact, the U.S. Justice Department Study commissioned the Wright-Rossi study of incarcerated felons in U.S. prisons concerning their attitude about guns.

The study found that 80% of incarcerated felons admitted that they had avoided committing a crime for fear of being shot.

Being familiar with the Wright-Rossi study, Kleck said: “Civilians shoot a lot of criminals, more than police do. Criminals know this and it stops them from committing crimes.” 

On a personal level, I admit that twice I have POINTED a gun at attackers and both times they ran away so I didn’t have to shoot. 

Recently, I saw an article that reported a total of 45,034 “gun violence” deaths in the U.S. in 2021. Of those so-called “gun violence deaths,” roughly 24,000 were suicides and 21,000 were “homicides.” The inclusion of suicides with a gun in the number of so-called “gun violence” deaths is a blatant manipulation of statistics to satisfy a political purpose.

The definition of homicide is the deliberate and unlawful killing of one person by another.  Suicide is defined as injuring oneself with the intent to die. While suffocation, poisoning, drug overdose and hanging suicides are classified as “self-harm deaths,” suicides with a gun are politically classified as “gun violence” deaths.

Clearly, law-abiding gun owners who are prepared to defend themselves present a problem for people who want to ban guns.

In all probability, people who want to ban guns have never owned a gun much less fired a gun. My grandfather used to say: “Don’t put your mouth in motion before you put your brain in gear.” That was good advice then and it’s good advice now.

For over 150 years the National Rifle Association of America (NRA) has been educating, training and providing factual information to law-abiding people about guns. Additionally, NRA has been on the front line fighting to protect the Second Amendment and your right to own and carry a gun for lawful purposes.

Consequently, the folks who want to ban guns better be prepared for a fight because the facts and the Constitution are not on their side.

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the positions of American Liberty News.

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