CPRC in newspapers and other media around the country over the last month

Aug 22, 2015 | Featured

Mastheads for newspapers

We don’t usually keep track of the local media coverage the CPRC receives or even all the national coverage, but here are some examples of the type of media coverage that the CPRC has received over the past month.  Of course, John Stossel’s recent column on the CPRC was picked up in dozens of newspapers across the US.  But here are some other pieces that mention our research.

From the Minneapolis Star Tribune (August 22nd, 2015):

. . . In 2014, the United States saw the largest single-year increase in the number of active carry permits, bringing the total to nearly 13 million, said John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center in Swarthmore, Pa. At least 10 states no longer require a permit to carry a handgun.

He cited polls that indicate a growing percentage of people feel safer with a gun in their home. He also pointed to the changing demographics of gun owners, which now include more blacks and women. . . .

The article also has this discussion noting that there haven’t been problems with permit holders:

“Virtually every case has been a person defending themselves,” [James Franklin, executive director of the Minnesota Sheriffs’ Association] said. “And I can’t recall a single case where a person hurt themselves with a gun [used for self-defense].”

From the Orange County Register (August 21st, 2015):

. . . Last October, the Crime Prevention Research Center released data showing that 92 percent of all mass public shootings from 2009-14 occurred in gun-free zones. These attackers may be evil but they obviously aren’t completely crazy, knowing that the greatest damage they can do will be in an environment where they have the weapons, and their prey is defenseless. . . .

From the Washington Times (August 6th, 2015):

. . . . They defined a mass public shooting as when four or more people are killed in a single incident involving guns in a public place, such as a workplace or a school. It does not include family-related mass shootings or crime-related mass shootings.

John R. Lott Jr., president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, disputed the statistical significance of the data, questioning whether it was possible to draw conclusions about the frequency and lethality of shootings over time.

“If [the report] included the data for 2014, it would’ve made it even less likely to find a relationship,” Mr. Lott said. “Last year was a very quiet year. [If] you put a quiet year at the end, it really pulls down the trend, and it would’ve made it so you would’ve clearly gotten a pretty flat relationship from 1999 on.” . . . .

The Times-News (Burlington, North Carolina) (August 9th, 2015):

. . . Gary Mauser, a professor at Canada’s Simon Fraser University, conducted a survey of 53 academics who have published research on crime and 83 percent — noted guns are more likely to be used in self-defense than in crime.  Further, 74 percent said concealed handgun laws reduce murder rates and 69 percent said guns in the home don’t cause more suicides. Also, 83 percent said gun-free zones attract criminals. The survey was published by the Crime Prevention Research Center. . . .

From The Blaze (August 4th, 2015):

. . . In fact, the presence of an armed populace has the exact opposite effect to what the state supposes. The Crime Prevention Research Center conducted exhaustive research that showed, with facts and numbers, not emotion, that the more citizens carrying guns, the fewer violent crimes there were. . . . .

The Gazette Mail (Charleston, West Virginia) (August 1st, 2015):

. . . A report released in July by the Crime Prevention Research Center, which was founded by gun rights advocate John Lott, determined that West Virginia ranks in the top 10 states, in terms of the percentage of population, with a concealed carry permit. 

The report said there are 12.8 million concealed handgun permit holders nationwide. That’s a significant increase from last year, when the group found 11.4 million permit holders. . . .

Kings Tree News (Kingstree, South Carolina) (July 29, 2015):

. . . Kingstree Police Department Captain Marc Whitfield offers concealed carry classes on a regular basis, and the people signing up might surprise you. “We’ve had several women in our classes,” said Whitfield who is the Concealed Carry Class Instructor. “The main reason they say is for home protection.”

According to the Crime Prevention Research Center since 2007, permits for women have increased by 270 percent and for men by 156 percent. Overall, concealed handgun permits have grown from 4.6 million in 2007 to over 12.8 million in 2015 despite the push by many for gun control. . . .

Tallahassee Democrat (July 27th, 2015) (also in CBS-TV Miami, NBC-TV Fort Myers, Florida):

. . . According to a 2014 study from the Pennsylvania-based Crime Prevention Research Center, Texas has issued the third most concealed-carry permits among the states. . . . .

Philadelphia Tribune (July 27th, 2015):

. . . But it isn’t just what people say. They are clearly putting more stock in self-defense. Since 2007, the number of concealed-handgun permits has soared, from 4.6 million to 12.8 million. A new study by the Crime Prevention Research Center finds that a record 1.7 million permits have been issued in just the past year, a 15.4 percent increase.

Nationwide, 5.2 percent of adults have a permit.

But in five states, more than 10 percent of adults now have concealed-carry permits. Recently, Maine became the 10th state to allow concealed carrying without a permit in all or almost all of the state. Kansas and Mississippi also made the change on July 1. In these states, we no longer know how many people are legally carrying guns, and thus the 12.8 million figure is clearly an underestimation. . . .

The Inquisitr.com (July 28th, 2015):

. . . According to the Crime Prevention Research Center, there were 391,816 concealed carry permit holders in Ohio as of July of last year. Residents with concealed carry permits have reportedly jumped by as much as 50 percent in 2015. More Ohio woman have reportedly gotten their CCW permit, an uptick in the southern Ohio area of Chillicothe also occurred, and was likely prompted by the possibility of a serial killer murdering multiple women in the area of the course of several years. . . .

The Tribune Papers.com (Asheville, NC) (July 26th, 2015):

This is not going to make the antigun crowd happy. The Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) has released a report that shows as concealed carry has grown across the nation, crime has gone down. One group even used the data to show that in constitutional carry states the murder and violent crime rate is lower than in states that greatly restrict concealed carry handguns.

The executive summary of the report also shows: the number of concealed carry permit holders has increased by 15.4% over the last year; the largest ever single-year increase; nearly 5% of the total adult population has a permit; in the last eight years concealed carry permits issued to women has increased by a whopping 270%; between 2007 and 2014 the murder rate has fallen from 5.6 to 4.2 per 100,000 population while during that same period concealed carry permits increased by 156%. They can’t make a direct correlation between the two but it is hard to argue with facts. Data also indicate there has also been a significant rise of concealed carry among minority populations. With more women and minorities entering the gun world, it is no longer an “old white guy” sport. You won’t see this good news reported in the mainstream media. . . .

The New American (August 23, 2015):

On August 14 the American Journal of Public Health published a lengthy and detailed study “Firearm Prevalence and Homicides of Law Enforcement Officials in the United States,” concluding that more police officers were being murdered in states where gun ownership was the highest.  . . .

John Lott, the founder of the Crime Prevention Research Center and author of More Guns, Less Crime, The Bias Against Guns, and Freedomomics, made short shrift of the alleged study:

It took [me] just a couple of minutes to read the paper and realize that the empirical work was done in a very non-standard way … the authors … only control for differences across states and not over time.

And it didn’t really measure gun ownership rates in each state either, but the suicide rate, marking that as an indicator of gun ownership, said Lott. He added:

Just accounting for the changes in crime rates over time completely reverses the claims made in the [report]

America’s First Freedom (August 16th, 2015):

. . . So-called “safe storage” laws that require firearms to be locked up do feature a body of statistical evidence pertaining to their impact, and it doesn’t prop up the side of the anti-gunners. John Lott co-authored a study back in 2001 demonstrating that such laws actually increase both violent and property crime rates, and a 2012 meta-analysis of various gun-control policies also concluded that their impact was either zero or negative. “Safe storage” laws fail to deter irresponsible behavior that occasionally leads to accidents, but they significantly decrease the ability of gun owners to defend themselves in the case of a home invasion. . . . .

America’s First Freedom (August 8th, 2015):

. . . “Every place in the world that’s tried to ban guns … has seen big increases in murder rates. You’d think at least one time, some place, when they banned guns, murder rates would go down. But that hasn’t been the case.” — John Lott, of the Crime Prevention Research Center, in a recent Reason.com feature titled “Gun Control Lies.”  . . . .

America’s First Freedom (August 7th, 2015):

. . . We cited a couple of studies arguing a lack of evidence for the effectiveness of the gun-control program, but there are more out there. Last year the NRA Institute for Legislative Action drew up a good summary of what we know about the buyback’s effects, and John Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center wrote a report for the Australian government. These are worth reading if you enjoy nuanced, responsible analysis of statistics. . . . .

The New American (August 23, 2015):

On August 14 the American Journal of Public Health published a lengthy and detailed study “Firearm Prevalence and Homicides of Law Enforcement Officials in the United States,” concluding that more police officers were being murdered in states where gun ownership was the highest.  . . .

John Lott, the founder of the Crime Prevention Research Center and author of More Guns, Less Crime, The Bias Against Guns, and Freedomomics, made short shrift of the alleged study:

It took [me] just a couple of minutes to read the paper and realize that the empirical work was done in a very non-standard way … the authors … only control for differences across states and not over time.

And it didn’t really measure gun ownership rates in each state either, but the suicide rate, marking that as an indicator of gun ownership, said Lott. He added:

Just accounting for the changes in crime rates over time completely reverses the claims made in the [report]

The Heartland Institute (August 26th, 2015):

. . . As detailed by John Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center, Daniel Webster of Bloomberg’s School of Public Health has “cherry picked” data in two of his most recent and well-publicized “studies” on state handgun licensing laws, one of which provided the centerpiece “evidence” for the HPLA discussed above. In fact, Lott’s analysis shows that if Webster’s research had been expanded to include more states and more years, his conclusions would have been much different. To wit, Lott shows that handgun licensing laws have had a negative impact on crime rates, instead of supporting Webster’s claims that such laws are positive. Again, when you hear about a researcher limiting their data when they don’t have a valid reason for doing so, “cherry picking” to drive a conclusion may be the reason. . . .

From Guns.com (August 6th, 2015):

. . . . “According to the Crime Prevention Research Center, since 1958 all but two of the mass killings in the United States have occurred in ostensibly ‘gun-free zones,’ presumably because criminals and sociopaths know victims will be disarmed,” Grass Roots North Carolina President Paul Valone told Guns.com.

“At precisely the time our state legislature as well as other cities and counties are expanding the ability of citizens to protect themselves, it is disappointing to see that Cumberland County is so short-sighted as to restrict self-defense for those who lack concealed handgun permits,” said Valone. . . .

Junior College (July 28th, 2015):

. . . . Reported by the Crime Prevention Research Center, there were 391,816 concealed carry permit holders in Ohio as of July of a year ago. Truitt said he has had more female students enroll ins his myriad of firearms training courses and noted that the ladies make great students because many are novices and have not picked up any “bad habits” in their shooting techniques. McCary is presently in Hamilton County jail awaiting charges. . . .

johnrlott

0 Comments

Archives