Quite a few people have made comparisons between the controversies that have been discussed here recently and the exposure of bogus (or at least very unprofessional) research by US historian Michael Bellesiles purporting to show that very few Americans owned guns before the Civil War. Bellesiles has had a major prize revoked and has resigned his position. You can pick your own parallels, but I was struck with this familiar rhetorical trope, quoted in a long and critical piece in the History News Network

In a taped interview published in the Emory Report in 1999, Bellesiles said, “I’m familiar with guns — I used to be in the NRA, as a matter of fact.

Another example of a sinner seeing the light!