Gun-free zones are a serious problem. Shannon Watts, the head of Michael Bloomberg’s Moms Demand Action, claimed that research that John Lott had done was “wrong and misleading” and that Lott was “debunked.” When Lott responded with a point-by-point refutation of her claim, she accused him of being a Twitter “troll.” Watts makes clearly personal attacks, but she feels that it is improper for someone to factually respond to her claims. …
The Washington Post’s Christopher Ingraham has another new post on gun control (earlier ones here), where he is claiming that most people are wrong to believe that permitted concealed handguns make them safer. In this case, Ingraham is responding to a new Gallup poll that finds that by a 56-to-41 percent margin Americans believe that more people legally carrying permitted concealed handguns would make them safer.…
John Lott debated Adam Winkler on Larry Mantle’s show about Winkler’s claim that demographic changes imply that the decline in support for gun ownership is “inevitable” (Tuesday, October 20, 2015 from 2:15 to 2:45 PM EDT).
…John Lott’s latest piece at Investor’s Business Daily responds to a recent op-ed by Adam Winkler in the Washington Post. Another version of this appeared in the Pittsburgh Tribune Review and is provided below. Lott’s piece is as follows:
…Gun ownership is greatest among rural whites, a group whose voting power is diminishing.
John Lott’s newest piece at the Daily Caller starts this way:
…Democrats keeping telling people that they don’t want to confiscate their guns, but at the same time they are praising the gun control laws in countries that have confiscated people’s guns. But Hillary Clinton’s claims that confiscation made them safer are completely wrong.
John Lott’s research shows that there are two groups of people who benefit the most from owning guns: 1) poor blacks who live in high crime urban areas (people who are most likely to be victims of violent crime) and 2) people who are relatively weaker physically (women and the elderly).…
For almost all categories of Americans, there is significant support for the notion that allowing people to carry permitted concealed handguns makes Americans safer. Only Democrats and those with a post-graduate education do not believe this, but that doesn’t mean that these individuals believe that carrying represents a risk. If the question were asked whether allowing people to carry concealed handguns either made us safer or had no effect, it is possible that the results would be even more overwhelming (after all while the vast majority of research finds that concealed handgun laws improve safety, no peer-reviewed research by criminologists or economists find that it increases murder, rape or robbery rates). …
The Orange County Register (Orange County, California) and the Press Enterprise (Riverside County, California), October 20, 2015
…But if someone is intent on breaking laws against murder, it is safe to assume that laws creating “gun-free zones” will not deter them. In fact, in many cases, it seems to attract them, as they can feel comforted knowing that they will be able to wreak their havoc upon a large number of helpless victims unable to fight back.
Voice of America, October 13, 2015
…Critics, such as John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, take issue with Everytown’s numbers.
“A number of fact checks have found significant mistakes in Everytown’s report,” Lott said in an email. “Among their mistakes, they include: shootings that are off of school property and do not involve people who have anything to do with the school, legitimate self defense gun uses, and gang shootings and lone suicides that were well outside of school hours that do not involve anyone connected to the school.” .
John Lott has a new piece at National Review that starts this way:
…Some have a hard time accepting that criminals can be deterred from committing crimes. They don’t believe that potential mass shooters have second thoughts when faced with the prospect of armed citizens who can fight back. They seem to think that everyday Americans can’t help stop attacks.
