After each mass public shooting, President Obama and Hillary Clinton call for expanded background checks. John Lott talked to the Associated Press in an article entitled “California’s tough gun laws didn’t make a difference in recent attack.” The article appeared in hundreds of newspapers, radio and TV outlets across the United States (e.g., Washington Post, Chicago Tribune, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, Boston Globe, San Francisco Examiner, Fox News Latino, Kansas City Star, and Miami Herald, and even the left wing Salon and Huffington Post) and the world (Canadian TV, China Post, New Zealand Herald, Korea Herald).
As a result, gun control advocates in the days since the shooting have called for more stringent laws in California and nationwide. At least two state lawmakers say they will propose measures to close what they consider loopholes in the state’s gun laws.
Crime Prevention Research Center president John Lott, a critic of additional gun laws who is often cited by the gun lobby, argued that the shooting illustrates how expanded background checks supported by President Barack Obama do not stop mass public shootings.
He noted that California, Colorado and Oregon — sites of the three most recent shootings — already have such laws in place.
“We’re being told that even though these laws didn’t stop these attacks in these states, somehow they would work in the rest of the country,” he said. “I know the claim is, ‘we don’t expect it to do everything but it will do some.’ Maybe they could point to one case where these laws would make a difference.” . . .
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