In a rare victory for sanity in the gun control debate, RAND Corporation—the go-to think tank for bespoke anti-2A research—has apparently fired its final shot in a decade-long barrage of taxpayer-funded agitprop. Their fifth and final study, clocking in at a bloated 440 pages, is little more than a verbose echo chamber of tired gun control clichés: universal background checks, assault weapon bans, red flag laws, and the usual parade of red herrings blaming firearms instead of criminals. What makes this good news isn’t just the end of the series; it’s the inadvertent self-own RAND delivered by wrapping these shopworn shibboleths in mountains of overwritten drivel, exposing the intellectual bankruptcy of the gun-grabbers’ playbook.
Context matters here: RAND’s gun policy series, launched around 2018, was explicitly designed as made-to-order ammunition for Bloomberg-funded advocates and their allies in D.C. Each installment cherry-picked data, ignored inconvenient studies (like those from the Cato Institute or John Lott showing defensive gun uses dwarf criminal misuse), and framed inconclusive evidence as a mandate for more restrictions. This latest tome? Pure filler—endless qualifiers, methodological hedges, and policy recitations that could fit on a single index card. It’s as if they hired a team of bureaucrats to pad a Wikipedia page. For the 2A community, this is gold: it underscores how the left’s research relies on volume over veracity, eroding public trust when even their own experts can’t muster fresh arguments.
The implications ripple far beyond one study. With RAND waving the white flag—no sixth installment announced—this signals fatigue in the prohibitionist machine, especially as real-world data (rising concealed carry permits, plummeting murder rates in shall-issue states) dismantles their narrative. 2A warriors should seize the moment: amplify this flop on social media, cite it in amicus briefs, and demand audits of the millions funneled into such pseudoscience. If the best the antis can muster after 440 pages is reheated hysteria, the right to keep and bear arms has never looked stronger. Time to reload and press the advantage.
