When billionaire couple Laura and John Arnold cut another check to the RAND Corporation for the latest edition of “The Science of Gun Policy,” the outcome was as predictable as ever. After all, when you’re footing the entire bill, you tend to get the results you’re looking for.
This marks the fifth annual installment of RAND’s “Guns in America” initiative, and once again, it delivers exactly what its funders wanted to hear: guns are dangerous, and Americans need more restrictions on their Second Amendment rights.
Follow the Money
Here’s what you need to know about the funding: Before 2018, RAND covered the initiative through internal funds and unrestricted donations. Since then, however, the Arnolds’ left-wing Arnold Ventures foundation has bankrolled the entire operation.
The result? Six RAND researchers produced a sprawling 440-page document that reads like a wish list from Everytown for Gun Safety.
The “Findings” and Recommendations
The report’s major conclusions will surprise absolutely no one familiar with gun control advocacy talking points:
Their claimed findings:
- Safe storage laws work
- Stand-your-ground laws are dangerous
- We need higher minimum ages for firearms purchases
- Waiting periods reduce homicides and suicides
- Universal background checks reduce homicides
- Domestic violence restraining orders should strip gun rights
Their recommendations:
- Mandatory safe storage laws in all states
- Repeal all stand-your-ground laws
- Ban concealed carry and constitutional carry nationwide
- Raise minimum age requirements for firearms and ammunition
- Prohibit gun ownership for anyone subject to a restraining order
- Mandate background checks for all private sales
RAND notes their report gets cited by mainstream media 75-100 times annually—a convenient arrangement for pushing a predetermined narrative.
One Silver Lining
There is some good news: this is supposedly the final edition of the annual report. RAND claims the report is no longer needed because “gun policies of every kind are being reconsidered and relitigated in the wake of the Supreme Court’s 2022 Bruen decision, which fundamentally altered the standards used to assess the constitutionality of firearm laws.”
Let’s be clear about something: Bruen didn’t “fundamentally alter” anything. It simply restored constitutional sanity by sweeping away decades of judicial gymnastics that anti-gun advocates had used to chip away at the Second Amendment. Bruen returned us to the text, history, and tradition standard—the way it should have been all along.
The Arnold Anti-Gun Pipeline
As the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project revealed last August, the Arnolds have built an effective propaganda machine. The former Enron trader and his wife funnel millions annually to universities, think tanks, and research organizations for predetermined “studies” that corporate media then cites as objective science.
The numbers are staggering. According to Arnold Ventures’ 2022 IRS filings, they paid RAND $2.8 million, with $1.7 million specifically earmarked for gun control research. The same year, they distributed another $1.8 million to other groups for similar work.
More recently, they’ve funded over half a million dollars for studies in Chicago, New York City, Texas, and D.C. evaluating “prosecutor-led diversion programs for non-violent gun offenses.”
The Bottom Line
What the Arnolds have created is straightforward: a well-funded pipeline where cash flows in one end and anti-gun propaganda emerges from the other, wrapped in academic credentials and presented as objective research.
It’s disappointing to see an organization with RAND’s 80-year reputation willing to serve as a rubber stamp for ideology masquerading as science. The 440 pages of this report could have been condensed to a single-page flyer—and often are by less-funded gun control groups making the same tired arguments.
As SAF founder Alan M. Gottlieb noted when this funding scheme was first exposed: we don’t need an elaborate propaganda pipeline on the pro-Second Amendment side. “We don’t need it. We simply rely upon the truth.”
And the truth is this: Americans’ constitutional rights aren’t up for sale, no matter how many billionaire-funded studies say otherwise.