Like other critics, Miss Seckora found that Mr. Bellesiles changed his story when confronted with questions about his research. Mr. Cramer says Mr. Bellesiles has "changed his story three times" about misquoting the 1792 Militia Act.
In recent months, "Arming America" has attracted a growing swarm of researchers who have found other serious errors. Northwestern University law professor James Lindgren says Mr. Bellesiles "counted guns in about 100 wills [in Colonial Rhode Island] where people died without wills."
Although researchers often disagree over the interpretation of data, scholars say, making up sources is an offense almost unheard of among serious historians.
"Everyone makes some mistakes," Bentley College history professor Joyce Malcolm said. "It's just in this case, the mistakes were wholesale. The book is just riddled with errors. It was so astounding, as a historian, I felt my jaw drop."
Mrs. Malcolm, whose 1994 book "To Keep and Bear Arms" traced the British roots of the Second Amendment, said the possibility Mr. Bellesiles fabricated data "takes your breath away."
"All his mistakes tend to support his thesis, every single one of them," she said. "It's hard to believe it's in good faith."
Mr. Bellesiles did not return telephone calls seeking comment on "Arming America." In the November issue of the Organization of American Historians (OAH) newsletter, however, he replied to his "ideologically charged" critics, saying he was the victim of "personal attacks," including "hateful, threatening, and expletive-laced phone calls, mail, e-mail and faxes."
In his OAH article, Mr. Bellesiles said many of his notes for "Arming America" were destroyed when his Emory office was flooded in April 2000 and that he "had to reconstruct where I read the probate files from memory." He said an upcoming issue of the William and Mary Quarterly devoted to the "Arming America" controversy "will explore alternative readings of the evidence."
The nature of the charges against Mr. Bellesiles causes some academics to insist on anonymity in discussing what one professor called "the worst historical scandal in memory."
James Melton, chairman of the Emory University history department, has asked Mr. Bellesiles to answer his accusers in detail.
Mr. Bellesiles must "defend himself and the integrity of his scholarship immediately," Mr. Melton told the Boston Globe in October, adding: "Depending upon his response, the university will respond appropriately."
Emory's demand that Mr. Bellesiles' defend his work is ominous, author John Lott says.
"The fact that Emory is asking him to respond to these critics is something I don't remember a university asking a professor to do," says Mr. Lott, a scholar with the American Enterprise Institute, whose 1998 book "More Guns, Less Crime" stirred debate over firearms laws. "I imagine Emory would be forced to take some kind of dramatic response, if [the accusations of fraud are] true."