Dr. John Lott was on the nationally syndicated John Gibson radio show to about the media coverage of the Pittsburgh Synagogue attack.
(Monday, October 29, 2018, from 1:20 to 1:30 PM)
On Louisville’s Giant 50,000 Watt WHAS: Talking about our research on how heavily concentrated murders are in the US
Dr. John Lott talked to Leland Conway about his new piece at Real Clear Politics titled "America’s Murder Problem Is Smaller Than It Looks," which discusses how heavily concentrated murders are in the U.S. (Wednesday, July 29, 2026, 11:35 to 11:49 AM ET)
You have asserted many times that these mass shooters are crazy but not stupid –that they deliberately pick targets where there are no guns so that people can’t defend themselves. So, you imply that if these locations had “good guys with guns,” there would be far fewer deaths. But, these shootings are random, as are the locations and venues. Given that that there are tens of millions of locations around the country where people assemble –airports, churches, theaters, etc –you would have to station a guard with a gun in each of these places. Morever, in many of these mass shootings, the guards were the first ones shot. So,what good would that do?
If you go through the stories regarding the Aurora Batman movie theater, the Charleston Church, the Santa Barbara attack, and other cases, you will see that these killers investigate multiple possible places attacks to attack. When there are multiple movie theaters they pick the one that is a gun-free zone (e.g., the Aurora Batman movie theater attack or the Lafayette movie theater shooting). The same thing happens with the mall shootings (Omaha Mall, Salt Lake City Mall).
Guards are the first to be attacked because when they are the only ones that have guns these killers know that once the guard is killed the attackers have free reign to kill others. Let concealed handgun permit holders be permitted in those places. The concealed handgun permit holders will actually make the job of the guards much safer. When these attackers try to kill a guard they reveal their position, and if there are concealed handgun permit holders present, the attacker has to worry that a permit holder might be behind them or to the side.