Colion Noir Checks the Studies Behind a Surgeon's Gun Advice

Colion Noir responds to a surgeon's viral video urging gun owners to remove firearms from their homes after a father stopped a school shooter in Bend, Oregon. Rather than just disagreeing, Noir pulls up the studies she cited onscreen and reads them in full, checking her numbers against the actual research.

Key points

• The CDC study: the 2004 paper claiming nearly double the odds of homicide in homes with guns used the word "associated," and its own authors admitted the gun found wasn't always the gun used, with confounding factors uncontrolled for.
• The Kellermann study: Noir says this 1998 research only counted self-defense cases where someone got shot, missing the far more common outcome where a gun stops a crime without a shot fired.
• The assault weapons ban: a 2024 study the surgeon cited estimated the 1994 ban prevented up to five mass shootings over ten years, while DOJ researcher Christopher Koper found the banned guns were involved in about 2% of gun crimes.
• Minors and guns: Noir agrees unsecured guns reaching kids is a failure, but notes her own source found 92% of K-12 shooters had suicidal intent and nearly half told someone beforehand, details left out of her video.

Quick take

Noir's approach here is methodical: he doesn't just argue, he opens the sources and shows where the data does and doesn't support the conclusions drawn from it. Worth watching for anyone who wants to see both sides of this debate get a real second look.

Watch the full video: Colion Noir