California Federal Judge Strikes Down California’s Assault Weapons Ban, Case that Dr. Lott was the expert for the plaintiff

Jun 5, 2021 | Testimony

In the case Miller v. Bonta, Dr. John Lott served as the expert for the plaintiff. The State of California had several statistical experts on their side: John Donohue, Louis Klarevas, and Lucy Allen. Federal Judge Benitez is quite unimpressed with the state’s experts, indicating that he thought that they did not accurately describe other research or improperly manipulated statistics to get the result they wanted. The judge’s opinion approvingly quotes Lott’s conclusion that assault weapon bans don’t reduce mass public shootings or violent crime.

Judge Benitez concluded that the state did not provide evidence that the assault weapons ban reduced any type of violent crime.

A copy of the decision, which was released on June 4th, 2021, is available here.

Benitez’s revised decision after the Bruen case is available here.

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