CPRC in the News: Washington Examiner, Washington Times, Instapundit, Reuters, Sun Sentinel, and more

May 1, 2024 | Media Coverage

. . . Writing in The Federalist, a conservative online magazine, Crime Prevention Research Center President John Lott said the laws don’t give wrongly accused gun owners enough power to protect their interests.

“Congress never authorized the U.S. Department of Justice to create this resource center,” Lott wrote with U.S. Rep. Thomas Massie, R-Kentucky. “A judge acts solely on the basis of a written complaint. He never talks to the person who made the complaint or the person against whom it was made.”

To illustrate their point, Lott and Massie cited use of the law last year against Andrew Pollack

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leaving the page., another father of a slain Stoneman Douglas student, Meadow, 18. Pollack, who now lives in Oregon, had his guns returned after a judge determined he never made any threat that showed he was at risk of using them.

Pollack criticized the ability of police to seize weapons before the alleged threat is properly assessed. “Is the guy threatening to kill people? Arrest him,” Pollack said. “But there has to be due process before the guns are taken away, not after. You can’t just go take their guns away.”

Fort Lauderdale lawyer David Brill, who represents Pollack locally said the fact that the law can be abused should not detract from its value. “There’s always going to be someone who’s going to abuse the intent and spirit of a given provision for his or her own benefit,” he said. “There is a lot of benefit that could accrue from this law. We just need to be careful that it’s not abused.”

Rafael Olmeda, “Is Florida’s red flag law working? Gun deaths are up, but mass shootings down,” Sun Sentinel (South Florida), April 1, 2024.

A new review of artificial intelligence chatbots popular with students, reporters, and researchers shows a liberal bias on crime and guns in a trend likely to turn even further left with today’s announcement that Seattle-based Amazon is planning to invest $2.7 billion into artificial intelligence.

On some of the most controversial crime and gun issues, current popular AI rewriters and research tools show little love for conservative positions in bending in favor of an anti-gun and crime reform agenda.

The Crime Prevention Research Center, which has produced dozens of reports aimed at balancing the media’s anti-gun bias, recently tested 20 AI chatbots by asking sixteen questions on crime and gun control and ranked the answers from liberal to conservative.

President John R. Lott Jr. said the results revealed a left-wing bias on questions that the systems answered.

On just one question, did the average answer score moderately conservative. That was on whether gun buybacks cut crime. On a zero to four scale, with two at the mid-point, it scored a 2.22. Answers to the rest were in the liberal 0-2 range.

“For all the questions on crime, the average AI chatbot score is liberal, with answers for punishment versus rehabilitation (0.85), whether illegal aliens increase crime (0.89), and the death penalty as deterrence (1.00), creating the most consistently liberal responses,” per Lott’s report, which was shared with Secrets.

“For example, 10 of the 16 AI chatbots responded that they strongly disagreed that punishment is more important than rehabilitation. Six of the 14 strongly disagreed that illegal immigration increases crime, and all the other eight disagreed. Nine of the 16 who answered the question on the death penalty strongly disagreed that it deterred crime, and five others disagreed,” he added.

On gun control, the bias “is even worse,” he said in a post published on RealClearPolitics.

“Questions eliciting the most liberal responses are background checks on private transfers of guns (0.83), gunlock requirements (0.89), and Red Flag confiscation laws (0.89). For background checks on private transfers, all the answers express agreement (15) or strong agreement (3). Similarly, all the chatbots either agree or strongly agree that mandatory gunlocks and Red Flag laws save lives,” the report said.

While polls show support for those measures, it is not as high as the chatbots suggest.

At issue, said Lott, is the degree to which research papers and media reports on crime and guns are written by AI or through AI filters and how it could skew the presentation left.

Paul Bedard, “Chatbots like crime, hate firearms: A Second Amendment study,” Washington Examiner, March 27, 2024.

Some D.C. officials doubt that putting more police on trains would solve the capital region’s transit crime.

John R. Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, said having uniformed officers on Metro cars and buses would stop criminals only in the presence of police. Most criminals would wait until the officers switch train cars or bus lines before acting.

“My guess is it’s going to be a very boring job, particularly if you have officers in uniform because, unless the guys are really stupid, they’re not going to go and commit the crime,” Mr. Lott told The Times. . . .

Matt Delaney, “Transit ‘theater’ fails to scare criminals; police presence gives riders only a sense of security,” The Washington Times, March 20, 2024.

On March 11, 2024, Dr. John Lott debated the eminent law professor Sanford Levinson on the subject: Was the Second Amendment a Mistake?  The debate lasted about an hour. It was held at the University of Wisconsin, and started at 6:30 p.m. The debate was sponsored by the Intercollegiate Studies Institute(ISI). The moderator was Professor Ryan Owens. 

Unlike much of what we see in politics, the debate was cordial and civilized. . . .

Dr. Lott’s position was that of an empiricist, appropriate for his training and profession as an economist. His position was: the Second Amendment was not a mistake, because more guns means more protection for the vulnerable in society.

Professor Levinson’s position was a classic position of Progressives. It consisted of two basic points. First, that was then, this is now. Things have changed. Policies have to change with circumstances. The Second Amendment keeps the government from making changes. Second, restrictions on government are bad. Government is good. 

It appeared to this correspondent Dr. Lott’s empirical approach was more persuasive. Professor Levison suggested, at one point, that given Dr. Lott’s position, the government should subsidize the purchase of guns by lower income people. Dr. Lott responded by saying he would be happy if the government would simply stop making it harder for poor people to purchase and carry guns.

Professor Levison burnished his academic reputation by stating one of the best supports for the U.S. v Heller decision was the Dred Scott decision, decided in 1857. He gave an accurate portrayal of Chief Justice Taney’s explanation of why black people could not be considered citizens. Black people would then be able to carry guns with them wherever they would go. This academic exercise seemed to support Dr. Lott’s position more than Professor Levinson’s. . . .

Staff, “Debate, John Lott and Sanford Levison: Was the Second Amendment a Mistake?” Before It’s News,” April 8, 2024.

​​”I’ve been tracking the number of concealed carry permits since 1998,” Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) founder and President John Lott said. 

“And what you find is that this is the first year that there’s actually been a drop in the number of concealed carry permits. It’s not very much, but you basically see two different types of states.” 

“In the constitutional carry states, there was a drop. In all the other states, there was an increase.”

“The main reason for the drop is that the number of permits declines gradually in the constitutional carry states even though it is clear that more people are legally carrying.” . . .

Joseph Ellis, “NRA Says Gun Control Lobbyists’ Strategies Have ‘Backfired’ As Permitless Carry Laws Increase,” State of the Union, January 2024.

paper at the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC), founded by researcher John Lott, shows how faith in the police, arrest rates, and crime reporting are all interrelated. The paper is titled ” The Collapse in Law Enforcement: As Arrest Rates Plummet, People Have Been Less Willing to Report Crime,” published on April 5, 2024.

As faith in the police collapses, reporting of crime drops, and so do arrest rates and clearance rates for both violent crimes and property crimes.  This has the classic look of a positive feedback loop. The consequences are far from positive.  It is not a clear case of simple cause and effect. Faith in the police, reporting of crimes, and arrest rates are all interconnected in complex ways. From the paper: . . .

Dean Weingarten, “As Faith in Police Drops, so Do Arrest Rates,” Ammoland, April 10, 2024.

My default position is that if Vice President Kamala Harris says something, assume it’s a bad idea until proven otherwise.

So far, it hasn’t been proven otherwise.

Sometimes, though, it’s easier to tell something is a bad idea than others. It’s never difficult with this administration, but sometimes they might as well put it up there with eating babies or something.

When Harris started talking about a federal “red flag center,” it was one of those times.

Yet John Lott and Rep. Thomas Massie note that there are even bigger issues than the normal problems with such an anti-gun proposal. . . .

But they do bring up an example of why I have a major problem with red flag laws that’s worth discussing a bit. . . .

Tom Knighton, “Lott, Massie Note Major Issues With ‘Red Flag Center’,” Bearing Arms, March 29, 2024

The false choice is the notion that we must infringe on the Second Amendment in order to “prevent these tragedies.” As researcher John Lott has painstakingly documented, the truth is the exact opposite. The greater the gun ownership, the lower the instance of violent crime.

While we may sound like a broken record, the most obvious truth must once again be stated: Murderous seekers of mass casualties always choose soft targets — “gun-free zones.” Therefore, the best way to protect soft targets like schools is to harden them with individuals with guns. Put another way: The best way to protect kids is with guns. . . .

Thomas Gallatin, “Biden’s ‘Gun Show Loophole’ Gaslighting,” The Patriot Post, April 15, 2024.

2018 study, opens new tab using Arizona state prison records from 1985-2017 found that immigrants in the country illegally were more likely to be convicted of a crime. The study, by conservative economist John Lott, found immigrants in the U.S. illegally tend to commit more serious crimes and serve longer sentences. . . .

Ted Hesson and Mica Rosenberg, “Trump says migrants are fueling violent crime. Here is what the research shows,” Reuters, April 11, 2024.

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