Emily Badger had a post on concealed carry laws in the July 29th Washington Post claiming that concealed handgun laws have not reduced violent crime rates. Among the claims in the piece where:
…“That sort of gets lost on people,” Webster says, “because the way this issue is portrayed is that we have one group of people — legal gun owners — and the assumption is that these are law-abiding, god-fearing, church-going people.
John Lott was on the Voice of Russia to discuss gun violence in the United States, particularly the case of 51 year old Don Spirit who killed his daughter and grand children (also here). Comparable homicide rates in the Russian Federation and the US are available from the United Nations (pp.…
Click on figures to make them larger.
Lowering the return to crime makes it less likely to occur. In these diagrams, there are several possibilities about what is happening: either thieves are switching from the iPhone to Samsung devices, simply deterring criminals from stealing iPhones, and/or all cell phone theft is being deterred (possible if criminals aren’t sure what phone someone has before trying to steal it), but that the effect is larger for iPhones because of Apple’s “Activation Lock.” From a report by the San Francisco District Attorney:
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From the Washington Times:
…With little fanfare, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) in 2012 amended its Form 4473 — the transactional record the government requires gun purchasers and sellers to fill out when buying a firearm — to identify buyers as either Hispanic, Latino or not. Then a buyer must check his or her race: Indian, Asian, black, Pacific Islander or white.
On the one-year anniversary of the Navy Yard shooting, President Obama “called on Americans to renew the push for gun-control legislation”:
…“One year ago, 12 Americans went to work to protect and strengthen the country they loved,” Obama said. “Today, we must do the same — rejecting atrocities like these as the new normal and renewing our call for common-sense reforms that respect our traditions while reducing the gun violence that shatters too many American families every day.” .
From the Blaze:
…. . . However, Dr. John Lott Jr., Second Amendment expert and president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, told TheBlaze the proposed law is not a huge win for gun rights.
Lott said politicians in Washington, D.C., are considering passing a “may issue” concealed carry law that would come with a laundry list of restrictions and the final decision on issuing concealed carry permits would be “arbitrary” and left to government officials.
DC is adopting a May Issue concealed handgun law to “suitable firearms owners who can show they have a legitimate need for it to obtain a permit to carry a weapon in public in a concealed manner.”
Unfortunately, recent litigation losses suffered by Gura are being used to provide legal cover for this extremely restrictive concealed carry law. …
Alabama Today has a detailed discussion on concealed handgun permits in the state, noting that there are now about 470,000 permit holders in Alabama. The news article relies heavily on our July report on concealed handgun permits around the country.
Unfortunately, there were some weaknesses in the piece.
— The six states that allow people to carry without a permit very likely have even higher rates of legal concealed carry than Alabama ( no permits are required in Arizona, Alaska, Arkansas, Montana (99.4% of the state), Wyoming, and Vermont).…
Maya Akai had John Lott on WVON, the big black talk radio station in Chicago, to discuss racial profiling in law enforcement, Ferguson, and affirmative action in police departments. It was a very lively program. What was particularly striking was the number of callers who claimed that more police are put in high crime black areas so that they can kill more blacks. …
Original data available here. The number of insider trading cases increased from 6 a year under President George W. Bush to 15 a year under President Obama. The big increase in cases under Obama didn’t come until 2011, which isn’t surprising as it takes some time after a case is brought before a sentence is determined. …
