BELLEVUE, WA – A study limited to 30 male students at a small Illinois college that claims handling firearms “primes men for aggression” by raising their testosterone levels is being dismissed as junk science by the Second Amendment Foundation (SAF).
According to the Associated Press, psychologists at Knox College put test subjects in a bare room in which they found, on a table, either a board game called Mouse Trap or a large handgun. They were instructed to disassemble either the gun or the game and write directions for the disassembly and reassembly. Researchers measured testosterone levels through saliva samplings before and after the test, and found that levels rose sharply in the men who handled the gun, but not the game.
Afterward, study subjects were asked to taste a cup of water with a drop of hot sauce in it, and then prepare a similar drink for the next student, adding as much hot sauce as they wanted. Researchers said those who handled the gun added about three times more hot sauce to the drink than those who didn’t.
“Based on this,” marveled SAF founder Alan Gottlieb, “these people are claiming that merely handling firearms makes men more aggressive, because they want to play what amounts to a practical joke on the next guy. We’re not certain what this questionable research indicates, other than the strong possibility that researchers at Knox College have far too much time on their hands, and maybe ought to think about getting real jobs.
“However,” he continued, “the anti-gun crowd has jumped all over this junk science, giving the impression it is nothing short of divine scripture, because it reinforces their twisted stereotype of a gun owner as being someone who may be looking for trouble. That’s what they’ve wanted the public to believe about average firearms owners for decades.
“This so-called study has its critics, and rightly so,” Gottlieb noted. “Might we suggest that the authors of this research try devoting their time to solving world hunger or the national energy crisis? That would certainly benefit mankind more than trying to add another layer of suspicious data that ranks right up there with determining the number of angels on the head of a pin.”