Source: The Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project
Here’s a question for you: Does it matter if a university psychiatry professor builds his career and reputation on anti-gun research that gets published in one of the most widely read medical journals in the world, without a single disclaimer, bias label, or conflict-of-interest flag?
It should. And according to the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project, that’s exactly what’s been happening with University of Michigan psychiatry professor Brian M. Hicks, PhD.
Hicks has made a name for himself and secured significant federal funding by producing studies that reliably arrive at one conclusion: guns are bad, and more gun control is needed. The Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) keeps publishing his work as if it’s objective science. It isn’t.
The Latest Study: ‘Thoughts of Shooting Others’
Hicks’ most recent piece, published in JAMA Network Open on St. Patrick’s Day, is titled “Prevalence of Thoughts of Shooting Others Among US Adults.” That title alone tells you where this is going.
His conclusion? “A small but nontrivial percentage of people in the US think about shooting others.” He leaned on CDC data, an agency with its own well-documented anti-gun institutional bias, and used it to argue, as he always does, for more “prevention efforts” to address “gun violence risk.”
What he doesn’t mention: that the vast majority of law-abiding gun owners have no such thoughts, use their firearms responsibly, and would be directly harmed by the kind of sweeping policy interventions his research is designed to support.
JAMA Keeps Publishing It — Without Labeling It
This is where the story gets worse. JAMA, founded in 1883 and published 48 times a year, carries enormous weight in the medical community. When it publishes something, physicians across the country and around the world treat it as settled science.
Hicks’ work isn’t labeled as opinion. It isn’t flagged for ideological bias. It’s presented as legitimate, peer-reviewed research, and JAMA has apparently never bothered to look at the professor’s social media to see who they’re platforming.
SAF’s investigative team did. What they found should give JAMA’s editors serious pause.
His X Account Removes All Doubt
A look at Professor Hicks’ X account makes clear that his research isn’t driven by dispassionate scientific inquiry. Here’s a sample of what he’s posted:
“Most COVID gun buyers believed in Q-Anon conspiracies. 76% endorsed the belief that the government, media, and financial worlds in the United States are controlled by a group of Satan-worshiping pedophiles who run a global child sex trafficking operation.”
— @BrianMHicks1, September 16, 2023
“COVID gun buyers reported much more intimate partner violence (IPV). 56% occasionally to frequently punch or hit their partner versus 1.6% of non-gun owners and 3% of pre-pandemic gun owners.”
— @BrianMHicks1, September 16, 2023
“So the profile of a COVID gun buyer includes high rates of prior violence and antisocial behavior, suicidal thoughts and self-harm behaviors, many mental health & substance use problems, beliefs in violent conspiracies, and super into guns.”
— @BrianMHicks1, September 16, 2023
“Pro-gun attitudes were associated with less fear of a school shooting. So pro-gun people are less afraid that a shooting will occur but are more in favor of teachers carrying guns. Some people just like guns.”
— @BrianMHicks1, May 27, 2022
This isn’t a neutral researcher following the data. This is an ideologue with a conclusion already in hand, working backward to support it — and getting published in JAMA in the process.
Your Tax Dollars at Work
If you’re a gun owner and a taxpayer, and odds are you’re both, you’re helping fund this. The National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) recently awarded Hicks a grant specifically to “expand his research into firearm injury and mortality prevention.”
That’s federal money, flowing to a researcher whose social media makes clear he views gun owners as violent, paranoid, and dangerous — and whose published work is designed to build the academic case for restricting your rights.
The Bottom Line
Hicks is one professor. But he’s a symptom of a well-funded, institutionally backed campaign to launder anti-gun politics through peer-reviewed journals and land them on the desks of policymakers and physicians.
When a journal as influential as JAMA publishes this work without so much as a bias label, it carries real consequences for gun owners. This research gets cited in court cases, referenced in legislation, and quoted by politicians pushing for restrictions on your Second Amendment rights.
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