I do wonder how generations of pioneers and frontiersmen survived when the majority of the meat they ate was harvested with lead bullets.
This indirectly reminded me of the
Michael Bellesiles fiasco.
For those who don't know, Bellesiles wrote a book called
Arming America. His thesis was that the whole idea of the frontier being won with guns was a myth. He claimed that there were actually very few guns in civilian hands, and that even those were in poor repair.
It was published at the tail end of the Clinton administration, when antigunners were running high and arrogant on their legislative victories. The media loved the book. Gun control advocates loved the book. In fact, the most prominent blurb on the cover was a quote from Harry Reid saying it would be "the final nail in the NRA's coffin." It won the Bancroft prize, which is like the Pulitzer for historians. It was picked up for use in numerous university courses.
There were two problems. The first was the fact that none of the peers who supposedly reviewed the book actually checked Bellesiles' sources in detail.
The second was that many of those sources were
inaccurate or downright fraudulent. Don't take my word for it. Emory University (where Bellesiles was employed) did their own review. They bent over backward giving him a chance to exonerate himself, and he still ended up losing his job over it. What's more, for the first time in history, the Bancroft prize was revoked.
EVERYBODY came away from it with egg on their face. The backpedaling from professors and politicians was absolutely hilarious. In fact, the ALA had a huge debate on whether or not they should continue to catalog the book, which led to a wider debate over whether or not references to it should indicate it had been debunked.
So, how did it even happen? The antis WANTED this SO BADLY they never stopped to consider that the research might be sloppy or fraudulent. Their bias was already there; they just NEEDED something "academic" to validate it.