Plus, Nance and his team, like all anti-gun organizations still relay on a lot of false logic ‘correlation = causality’. For example, in their ‘study’ called “Most Mass Shootings Occur Closest to Hospitals without Verification to Treat Trauma”, aside from using their standard ‘cookie cutter’ ‘change title and plug stuff in’ pattern, they says this: “CHOP researchers find children are particularly vulnerable, with most mass shootings happening more than 10 miles from a pediatric trauma center” implying (and basing on) the false logic ‘correlation = causality’ that because something happens (they claim) “10 miles from a pediatric trauma center” that children are “particularly vulnerable” to ‘mass shootings’.

I got news for you, nationwide more than 90,000 children, age 12 and under, are injured (and some die at the scene or later, and some left permanently disabled in some aspect) every year in car accidents. Were those children somehow more safe and less vulnerable because they may have been within 10 miles of a pediatric trauma center? There is no ‘correlation = causality’ like Nance and his team claim in their ‘study’ “Most Mass Shootings Occur Closest to Hospitals without Verification to Treat Trauma”. The false logic ‘correlation = causality’ has been a staple of the anti-gun organizations and people for many years, its been disguised in many forms but its still always there.

Nance and his team use a standard ‘template’ for their studies, its a ‘cookie cutter’ ‘change title and plug stuff in’ pattern. Their studies are always full of a lot of ‘assuming’ based upon coincidence and false logic ‘correlation = causality’. In the study “Most Mass Shootings Occur Closest to Hospitals without Verification to Treat Trauma” you can see it again just as I pointed out with their study “Locations of Mass Shootings Relative to Schools and Places Frequented by Children” — “Most Mass Shootings Occur Closest to Hospitals without Verification to Treat Trauma” could very well be “Most Car Accidents Occur Closest to Hospitals without Verification to Treat Trauma” or “Most Child Poisonings Occur Closest to Hospitals without Verification to Treat Trauma” or “Most Suicides Occur Closest to Hospitals without Verification to Treat Trauma”. Its just a matter of title change and plugging in the data using the same biased methodology they use for all their studies and leaving out confounding variables and other relevant data, for example, in the study “Most Mass Shootings Occur Closest to Hospitals without Verification to Treat Trauma” they again use ‘distance’ like they used for their study “Locations of Mass Shootings Relative to Schools and Places Frequented by Children” and again leave out accounting for confounding variables. Its ‘junk science’.

In 1996 our group of pro-gun doctors worked with the gun lobby to get Congress to defund the CDC’s garbage anti-gun advocacy. President Trump has indicated his willingness to once again cut federal funding for all manner of anti-constitutional, anti-American advocacy research and similar activities at American universities. Sounds as though we need to take a fresh look at how many millions of taxpayer dollars are being gifted to Nance and Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia. It should be zeroed out.

Timothy Wheeler, MD
Director Emeritus
Doctors for Responsible Gun Ownership

Gotta work that “for the children” shtick in somewhere.