Dr. John Lott was on Fox 5 DC to discuss the DC Gun Control March. Lott and Nicole Goeser discuss the danger of gun-free zones.
Here is the post from the Fox 5 DC website:
“I am very frustrated by this whole debate right now,” Lott said. “We keep on having solutions being put forward that wouldn’t have stopped the attacks in Florida and wouldn’t have stopped other attacks. The one common issue that we see in all of these shootings is that they all occurred in gun-free zones. Criminals aren’t stupid. They know that will maximize the body count.”
Lott also advocates for allowing schools to arm themselves because armed officers become targets of the shooter. When analyzing the data, he also said banning assault weapons is not the answer.
“We tried assault weapons bans for 10 years,” he explained. “There was really no change. A lot of academics have looked at this and they just haven’t found any benefits.”
Nicole Goeser has been directly affected by gun violence and said her firsthand experience proves why guns are needed. Her husband was shot and killed in a gun-free restaurant.
“I had to leave my permitted handgun that I normally carry for self-defense locked in my vehicle that night,” explained Goeser. “My stalker did not obey the law, brought a gun into a gun-free zone illegally and shot my husband six times in front of me and everyone.”
Since the tragedy that upended her life, she has written a book advocating for Second Amendment rights and an end to gun-free zones.
“I don’t think anyone should feel ashamed for wanting to stand up for their Second Amendment rights,” she said. “I don’t think anyone should feel ashamed for wanting to protect themselves and their families.” . . .
Fox 5 Atlanta, Fox 10 Phoenix, Fox 29 News Philadelphia, Fox 32 Chicago, KTVU San Francisco, Fox 5 NY, Fox 7 Austin, Fox 35 Orlando,. . . .
A few minutes ago I saw John Lott on television. He was essentially disparaging the hundreds-of-thousands of people, both young people and adults, who are marching today in our nation, and indeed around the world, in opposition to guns and gun violence.
Mr. Lott’s contention, as I understood it, is that lowering the number of guns in a country doesn’t bring down the number of gun-related deaths. I was struck by this theory, because it seemed to be at odds with common sense. There probably are statistics to “prove” this theory; there is usually something that can be used to make anything seem truthful no matter how untruthful it may be.
There are some reliable statistics relating gun ownership in a particular country with gun deaths per year by homicides, suicides, etc. For our purposes, let’s consider gun ownership per 100 people, gun deaths by 100,000 people, and homicides per 100,000.
I wouldn’t attempt to look at the statistics for all countries, but I would consider some with high levels of gun ownership. Sweden, Norway, and Finland have gun ownership rates of 31.6, 31.3, and 27.5 percent relatively. Those countries are fairly close geographically, and their gun ownership rates are very close as well, and those rates are high compared with most other countries. The gun deaths and gun homicides per 100,000, in these three countries are: Sweden – 1.47 & 0.19; Norway – 1.75 & 0.10; and Finland – 3.25 & 0.32.
Switzerland, a nation that has been said to require gun ownership, in fact does not. A person who’s in the armed forces is issued a weapon, and at one time they were expected to take it home when they left the service. Now those guns are retrieved when the person goes back to private life, and most of those that were still in the hands of veterans have been confiscated. They now have a gun ownership rate of 24.45%, high, but the gun deaths and gun homicides per 100,000 are 3.01 & 0.21 respectively.
Australia, known for its gun buyback program following a mass shooting, has a gun ownership rate of 13.7%. The gun deaths and gun homicides are 1.04 & 0.18 per 100,000. In neighboring New Zealand 30 people out of 100 own guns, and the gun deaths and homicides per 100,000 are 1.07 & 0.10.
Japan is an interesting country. Only 0.6% of the Japanese people own guns! The gun death and gun homicide rates are 0.06 and 0.00 per 100,000. Japan recognized the indecency of people shooting and killing one another.
Canada, our neighbor to the north, one might think would be rather similar to the USA. After all Canada is a nation that has a large percentage of immigrants, the descendants of those immigrants are in a position of power over the indigenous people, and in both countries there was a settlement movement toward the mainly unsettled west. So all that said, let’s see where Canada falls with respect to firearms. 25.33% of our Canadian neighbors own guns. That’s relatively close to the Nordic countries and Switzerland , so perhaps there’s a pattern for civilized countries (I don’t think so, but anticdotally it looks that way). Canada has a gun death rate and a homicide rate of 2.5 & .45 per 100,000.
Now we must sadly look at the good old USA. Undoubtedly you must see that the official God of America is firearms. The inscription on our money should be “In Guns We Trust.” Our rate of of gun ownership is an amazing 101.05%! What justification can be made for that many guns to be in the hands of people? Gun deaths in America are 10.45, and gun homicides are 3.5, each per 100,000 people. Americans don’t have a right to own guns. The 2nd Amendment gives the right to “keep and bear arms” to a member of “a well regulated militia,” and That’s the black letter of the 2nd Amendment which, if guns are God is the St. Peter. The National Guards of the various states is the militia, and no one can make a logical argument to the contrary.
Now as to Mr. Lott’s theory that having more people carrying concealed guns reduces gun deaths. Mr. Lott’s research must have missed the Japanese story and the Australian story. His line of thinking is nonsense. If a gunman enters a crowded restaurant and begins shooting, and there are 15 people carrying a gun, there will be so much crossfire that any idiot could tell you that more people would be killed.
Mr. Lott has taken an argument and insisted that it fits. He doesn’t have any evidence to support his theory. He just says it, and then he says it’s true. Mr. Lott is no expert who deserves to be on national television (but he’s a Fox guy, and that’s not news). He is clearly a fraud, and he should be seen as such.
Thanks, David. This is the wrong page to put this comment up, but the original post was in response to then President Obama’s continual comments that the US is unique in terms of these mass public shootings, which is clearly false. https://crimeresearch.org/2015/06/comparing-death-rates-from-mass-public-shootings-in-the-us-and-europe/ and https://crimeresearch.org/2018/03/fact-checker-snopes-com-big-mistake-comparing-mass-public-shootings-us-europe/
For a discussion regarding world data see: https://crimeresearch.org/2018/02/with-39-killed-in-tunisia-attack-the-top-three-mass-public-shootings-are-outside-the-united-states/
Regarding Japan, see https://crimeresearch.org/2013/12/murder-and-homicide-rates-before-and-after-gun-bans/
For Australia: https://crimeresearch.org/2018/02/fox-news-us-gun-control-advocates-exaggerate-benefits-australias-gun-restrictions/
For Canada, you might want to look up Caillin Langmann work in the Journal of Interpersonal Violence and his survey of other research on Canada. Discussion here
https://crimeresearch.org/2013/05/piece-on-canadas-national-gun-registry-canada-sank-2-7-billion-into-a-pointless-project/
Dr Lott,
You’re wasting your breath with David. He obviously was not a math major, as he is unfamiliar with the concept of a counter-intuitive result, one which seems in conflict with what “common sense” might indicate.
Anti-gunners are deniers. They claim to have their version of statistics and refuse or are unable to acknowledge better studies.
“Common sense” in the minds of anti-gunners is based a fantasy, the idea that somehow, if there were no guns in this world, that there would be no murders using guns. Common sense based solely on a fantasy is anything but good sense, and is in fact nothing but a fantasy. Arguments based on fantastical, unrealizable, false assumptions are not arguments at all, just really bad logic.