Before we get our knickers in a knot we might do well to
remember the immortal words of Sir Bernard Ingham, Margaret Thatcher’s press
secretary: “Many journalists have fallen for the conspiracy theory of
government. I do assure you that they would produce more accurate work if they
adhered to the cock-up theory.” Ingham’s statement calls to mind Hanlon’s
Razor: “Never
attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.”
In isolation, the three events simply look like dumb moves on the part
of our Federal Government. Are they isolated dumb moves or part of a
diabolically clever scheme? I think the default position ought to be that they
are a series of isolated dumb moves. To think otherwise tends to attribute more
talent to the Obama administration than it has displayed thus far.
Let’s do some fact checking. First, let us ask how the story got
started in the first place. I think we have three phenomena that account
for the story. (1) Confirmation bias; (2) data mining; and (3) pattern
recognition.
Confirmation bias: When we have a belief, we tend to develop
tunnel-vision about that belief. We tend to notice evidence which confirms our
belief and ignore evidence which goes against our belief. We may even search
diligently for evidence confirming our belief. When we go searching for
confirming evidence, we ought also to be just as diligent in looking for
contrary evidence. In the more extreme forms of confirmation bias we engage in
data mining.
Data mining: When confronted with a vast amount of data, we
have to analyze the data to determine what is relevant to our inquiry and what
is not. That’s why I always had the philosophy that in a murder investigation
everything is relevant until it is shown to be irrelevant. We separate the
wheat of relevant information from the chaff of irrelevance and we are able to
make a sound judgment. When we data mine, however, we are not discarding
irrelevant evidence, we are discarding evidence contrary to our position. We
don’t look for relevant evidence, we look only for confirming evidence. We not
only look for confirming evidence, we look for ways to interpret irrelevant
evidence to support our theory. This is where pattern recognition comes in.
Pattern recognition: We are orderly creatures. We like for
things to make sense. We like for them to conform to a pattern. We immediately
recognize patterns. We are so good at recognizing patterns that we see them
when they are not there. As a kid I used to lie on my back in my grandmother’s
yard and look at the clouds. I saw all sorts of animals, people, and other
things in the clouds. Of course they weren’t there. I was imposing a pattern on
random data. That’s why we see the Man in the Moon. That’s why we saw the face
on the surface of Mars.
So how does this work with the government conspiracy to dry
up the ammunition market? We start with the belief that the Obama
administration is anti-gun. Confirmation bias kicks in and we notice every bit
of information which confirms our belief while ignoring any information which
disconfirms it. We data mine looking for confirmation and pull out the three
unrelated factoids that the military is unwisely destroying ammunition, DHS and
other government agencies are buying large quantities of ammunition, and the
last lead smelting plant in the US has been shut down because of
over-regulation by the EPA. As will be shown below, at least two of those factoids are open to
question, but we ignore the contrary evidence. We look at the three unrelated
factoids, pattern recognition kicks in, and we think we might see a vast
government conspiracy to deplete the ammunition supply in the US. Now this is
where most people would stop. They’ve got their confirmation and they’ve got a
pretty little conspiracy theory.
Seeing the possibility of a government plot to back-door gun
control through drying up the ammo supply should not be the end of our inquiry.
It should be the beginning. Let’s ask around and see if the closure of the lead
smelter is going to adversely impact the ammunition supply.
I think we can dig a little deeper and find evidence for the
proposition that we are looking at isolated acts of incompetence rather than a
diabolically clever scheme. On further examination, it seems that (1) The
smelting plant was closed because of tightening EPA regulations which were
enacted during the Bush administration. (2) There are other lead smelting
plants still in operation. (3) Ammunition manufacturers have always bought
their lead from the still-operating plants, not the closed plant.
See the following websites:
http://www.factcheck.org/2013/12/no-back-door-gun-control/;
http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/12/02/rumor-check-did-obama-close-a-lead-plant-in-order-to-enact-backdoor-gun-control/.
There goes one leg of the tripod of evidence for the
back-door gun control theory. Another leg seems a little wobbly in light of
Federal Ammunition’s statement that Department of Homeland Security purchases
of ammo account for a very small part of their sales and that DHS purchases of
ammunition are actually decreasing. See the Federal website FAQ page here: http://www.federalpremium.com/company/faq.aspx
Make no mistake about it, the Obama Administration is no
friend of the Second Amendment, but the closure of the lead smelting plant gives us no reason to think they’re engaged in a plot to secretly destroy America’s
ammunition supply. After all, Federal agencies need ammo too, even if the military
doesn’t.
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