Deltoid

In the Tennessee Law Review (v61 513-596 1994) Kates et al wrote:

the inventive Dr. Diane Schetky, and two equally inventive CDC writers Gordon Smith and Henry Falk in a separate article actually do provide purportedly supporting citations for the claim that "[h]andguns account for only 20% of the firearms in use today, but they are involved in the majority of both criminal and unintentional firearm injuries." [265] The problems with this claim are that the claim is false in every respect and that the citations are fabrications. The purpose of the claim is to exaggerate the comparative risks of handguns vis-a-vis long guns so as to fortify the cause of handgun prohibition and avoid admitting the major problem we have already addressed that, because handguns are innately far safer than long guns, if a handgun ban caused defensive gun owners to keep loaded long guns instead (as handgun ban advocates and experts concur would be the case), thousands more might die in fatal gun accidents annually. [266]

When pressed about his claim that Smith and Falk's statement that handguns were involved in the majority of criminal firearm injuries was false, Kates wrote:

So far as I know, no statistics are available on the percentage of injuries involving handgun versus long gun crime.

After some more discussion Kates conceded:

that handguns are probably involved in a majority of gun misuses and a majority of criminal injuries inflicted with guns."

In fact, while Smith and Falk gave an out-of-date figure for the handgun percentage, their other claims were correct, and the overall thrust of their statement was also correct --- handguns are disproportionately involved in gun accidents and crime.

None the less Kates continued to insist that Smith and Falk were dishonest. He claimed this was because the reference they gave (to the UCR) did not provide any data on gun ownership or gun accidents. Kates claimed that if did not matter if their statement was correct, that if the cite was incorrect Smith and Falk must be dishonest. Ironically, Kates gave an incorrect cite in his passage but did not decide that it was dishonest but rather claimed that it was a mistake. It is puzzling why he refused to concede the Smith and Falk might also have made a mistake.

Kates has revised his Tenn Law Review article to form a chapter in the book "Armed: New Perspectives on Gun Control". Here is the new version of the paragraph I quoted above:

the inventive Dr. Diane Schetky, and two equally inventive CDC writers, George Smith and Henry Falk, in a separate article actually do provide purportedly supporting citations for her claim that "handguns account for only 20 percent of the nation's firearms yet account for 90 percent of all firearms [mis]use, both criminal and accidental."[113] The problem is that the claim is false in every part and the citations are fabrications.

The purpose of Schetky's claim is to exaggerate the comparative risks of handguns vis-a-vis long guns so as to fortify the cause of handgun prohibition and avoid admitting the major problem we have already addressed: that, because handguns are innately far safer than long guns, if a handgun ban caused defensive gun owners to keep loaded long guns instead (as handgun ban advocates and experts concur would be the case), thousands more might die in fatal gun accidents annually'

The main change that Kates has made in this passage is to remove Smith and Falk's statement "they are involved in the majority of both criminal and unintentional firearm injuries", which Kates was forced to concede as being true, and replace it with Schetky's incorrect claim "account for 90 percent of all firearms [mis]use, both criminal and accidental".

This appears to be a deliberate attempt by Kates to mislead his readers. I can't see any other explanation for the alteration. He does include Smith and Falk's statement, but it is hidden in an endnote and he somehow forgets to mention that it was true.