It appears that Michael Bellesiles, apparently desiring to keep up with his fellow disgraced gun researcher John Lott, also seems to have created an internet sock puppet. This internet sock puppet posts here at HNN and his name is"Benny Smith."

Meanwhile, even though his diehard supporters such as Clayton Cramer remain in their damn-near pathological state of denial, Lott's reputation takes another major beating in this article by Chris Mooney in Mother Jones. This article is quite devastating. You should read it.

And while we're at it, you should read the rather lame"it's all too complicated for me" defense of Lott by Cramer here.

I won't even tell you how hilarious it is to hear Cramer call someone like Saul Cornell a"partisan." If that isn't a case of the pot calling the kettle black, I haven't seen one.

And, despite Cramer's rather obnoxious delusions of grandeur, he really isn't the one who brought Bellesiles down. The WMQ article and the independent inquiry by Emory did. It is good that critics of Bellesiles were persistent, I won't deny that. However, ultimately it was the academic inquiries that brought Bellesiles down.

And, despite his rather prominent fits of pique to the contrary on this website, the Bellesiles case ultimately demonstrates that the historical profession can police itself. The same can't be said of certain ideologically-driven think tanks that support certain other prominent gun researchers I'm afraid.

BTW, why doesn't Cramer support an inquiry of Lott? If his hero Lott's data backs up his conclusions, he'll be exonerated, right?

[Links via Ralph Luker and Tim Lambert]