There’s just something about foreign academics and their lack of understanding of the American system that makes their research questionable at best. Further evidence of that can be found in a recent study by Australian and British researchers, which concludes, “Symbolic racism was related to having a gun in the home and opposition to gun control policies in U.S. whites.” They continue by asserting, “The findings help explain U.S. whites’ paradoxical attitudes towards gun ownership and gun control,” before whining that “[s]uch attitudes may adversely influence U.S. gun control policy debates and decisions.”

In essence, what these academics are arguing is that those who legally own firearms automatically assume a racist attitude toward blacks, generally with the belief that their self-protection is required because blacks are a threat. The study authors leap to this conclusion by noting, among other statistics, that “[b]lacks are disproportionately represented in U.S. firearm homicides … and would benefit most from improved gun control.” Yet, in the next breath they concede, “[R]esearch on the reasons for opposition to gun control is sparse.”

Much of their database comes from a single survey called the American National Election Study, with the researchers using data collected between 2008 and 2009 to test their hypothesis. Nowhere in the study, though, are other theories on attitudes toward gun control brought up, but without a great deal of effort we can conclude that our objection to gun control is based on a document drawn up two centuries ago. A plain reading of the Second Amendment is far from racist. Parting question: Where is the study about racist attitudes and the general disregard for life and property exhibited by baggy pants, backward cap gun-toters?