“Democrats keep claiming that Trump ‘gave away’ $40 billion to Argentina,” but “the claim isn’t true,” explains John R. Lott Jr. at RealClearPolitics.
“The US didn’t give Argentina money. It entered into a currency swap — and the US has actually earned a profit on the transaction.”
“The first $20 billion swap occurred on Oct. 9, 2025” and the second “followed on Oct. 20”; “on average, the pesos we got in exchange for the dollars were worth more now than when we bought them. As a result, the US now holds more than $41 billion in value from the original $40 billion.”
Treasury Secretary Scott Bessent “recognized the opportunity for the US to stabilize a key partner while making a profitable financial move.”
“There was no handout, no bailout, and no giveaway.”
The study, done by researchers John R. Lott, Jr. and Carlisle E. Moody with the Crime Prevention Research Center, also found that civilians with permits stop attacks more frequently and face a lower risk of being killed or injured than police. . . .
Lott and Moody said their study is the first to compare how uniformed police and civilians with concealed handgun permits perform in stopping active shooting cases.
Lott previously served as a senior adviser for research and statistics in the Office of Justice Programs and the Office of Legal Policy in the U.S. Department of Justice under President Donald Trump’s administration. Moody is a professor of economics at the College of William and Mary. . . .
Crime Prevention Research Center is an organization that is dedicated to conducting research on the relationship between laws regulating the ownership or use of guns, crime, and public safety, according to the organization’s website.
The data was compiled from cities in nearly all states for the years 2014-2024.
The FBI reported 350 active shooting cases over those years. The researchers said they identified 562 cases utilizing Nexis searches and defensive gun use cases from the Heritage Foundation, Defensive Gun Use Tracker, Gun Violence Archive, the American Rifleman and Reddit that met the FBI’s definition of an active shooting.
The FBI defines an active shooting as “one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area.” . . .
Jenna Sundel, “Study Praising Armed Civilians Sparks Criticism,” Newsweek, November 21, 2025.
. . . When politicians, particularly Democrats, are pushing an unsupportable policy, they inevitably scream we must accept their destructive lunacy “for the children.” It’s rather like why they usually call themselves “progressives.” Who can be against progress? Any sane American if Democrats are pushing it. “We must do it for the children” is no more convincing and should compel Normal Americans to check their wallets.
Dr. John R. Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center drives Democrats crazy. He provides his data sets and methodology, something Democrat “science” rarely if ever does, which makes a mockery of his political opponents. An example: . . .
Mike McDaniel, “The truth about child gun deaths,” American Thinker, November 8, 2025.
One study was done by the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) which gave up any semblance of non-partisanship decades ago. I did not do an in-depth analysis of the ADL study. I left that to two other creditable journalists. First, John Lott Jr. wrote Bogus ADL Report Mislabels Leftist Violence As ‘Right-Wing’. Lott is one of the most diligent journalists around. David Harsanyi wrote ADL Uses Surveys on Political Violence That Are Criminally Misleading. They fairly well tear apart the creditability of the ADL report, but you can read it yourself. Murder and Extremism in the United States in 2024 | ADL.
I read through this report and was stunned to see that none of these murders had anything to do with the person’s political beliefs. They murdered someone. As Mr. Lott points out over the last three years of their reports, the FBI recorded 58,781 murders. What was the background of the other 58,000+ murderers? This study is just flabbergasting. . . .
Bruce Blalosky, “Are People on the Right More Violent?” Flash Report, November 9, 2025.
For college, add bankruptcy legislation to deter excesses, making lobbyists back off. It’s not “forgiveness” but self-defense, like Dr. John Lott’s “more guns = less crime” — more discharge options curb defaults, saving $125 billion in bailouts. Cut servicers’ $10 billion to $20 billion fees, fund like K-12 or Germany’s model, slashing tuition hikes (439% since 1982) and saving $50 billion/decade. . . .
Gordon Watts, “Here’s a bipartisan fix to the shutdown,” The Ledger, November 9, 2025.
Indeed, according to John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, they ignored a letter he sent in to highlight the problems with the article.
In his letter, which is on his website, Lott says, “While justifiable homicides have risen as more people can defend themselves, the same FBI data it cites show that murder and violent crime rates fell over the same period between 2019 and 2024. When laws make it riskier for criminals to attack others—by allowing potential victims to defend themselves—there are fewer crime victims.” . . .
Frank Miniter, “Are Armed Citizens Licensed to Kill?,” America’s 1st Freedom, November 17, 2025.
The second model, which I call the “Trust the People” model, holds that the vast majority of criminal homicides are committed by a tiny fraction of society, that they are easily identified by their past history of violence, cultural set, and lack of civilized values and discipline instilled by a stable home life.The second model, which I call the “Trust the People” model, holds that the vast majority of criminal homicides are committed by a tiny fraction of society, that they are easily identified by their past history of violence, cultural set, and lack of civilized values and discipline instilled by a stable home life.
John Lott notes that it is the second model that has triumphed:
Actually, as I showed in More Guns, Less Crime, about 90 percent of adult murderers have a violent criminal record. About 89 percent of juvenile murderers have a criminal record for serious crimes.
— In 2010, there were 36 accidental deaths involving kids under age 10. Most of those children were also shot by adults with criminal records. Accidental deaths are very small portion of total gun deaths.
“Myth: The only way to stop a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun. Fact: If more guns everywhere made us safer, America would be the safest country on earth. Instead, we have a gun homicide rate 26 times that of other high-income countries.” There’s a mismatch between these two parts, as we’re left waiting to learn how we should stop a bad guy with a gun. It’s clear, though, that defensive gun uses by “good guys,” people lawfully armed, are responsible for saving lives and preventing crimes every day, including instances where concealed handgun permit holders have stopped what would have otherwise been mass public shootings. As for the United States and how it compares to other countries, Dr. John Lott’s Crime Prevention Research Center has found that the United States ranks below average on firearm homicide rates across countries, even though “many countries that clearly have higher gun homicide rates than the United States… simply don’t report firearm homicide data.”
A cornerstone for the NRA’s agenda to expand the presence of firearms in more places rests on the widely discredited research conducted by John Lott, who claims that more guns in society lead to less crime, and therefore, communities are safer when free from government restrictions on gun ownership and gun carrying. . . .
“Disarming Fear: Debunking Myths of Defensive Gun Use,” Everytown, November 12, 2025.
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