The Star Tribune published an op-ed attacking Dr. John Lott for a talk that he had given in Lakeville, Minnesota on February 23rd. The attacks weren’t of much substance. This letter appeared on March 1st.
…Paul Shambroom’s Feb. 27 commentary about the Lakeville anti-gun vigil and my concurrent public safety lecture left out a few important facts (“A vigil and a pro-gun event, taken together”).
Last December 5th, the New York Times had yet another editorial making false claims about guns. The information from the Violence Policy Center has been recycled over and over again every few months by them. We have written numerous letters to the editor to the New York Times, and we discussed with people at the Times.…
Fact Checking Bias, How law-abiding are concealed handgun permit holders, Letters that we submitted, media bias on guns, Violence Policy Center
In November, Scientific American published a longer letter by Dr. John Lott and a rebuttal to his letter online. In an earlier post, we provided a point-by-point rebuttal to Ms. Moyer’s claims. Lott had no control over what parts of his letter that Scientific American decided to use.
…GUNS AND CRIME
Melinda Wenner Moyer’s article “Journey to Gunland” ignores virtually all of the literature on right-to-carry laws and gun ownership since 1998.
Scientific American recently ran a 6,000-word article claiming that more guns mean more crime. Dr. John Lott wrote a letter responding to some of the many errors and the author wrote a response to his letter. Here is Lott’s letter as well as the author’s responses and Lott’s responses to her. …
The Los Angeles Times had a news article by Lauren Rosenblatt attacking Dr. John Lott’s testimony to the President’s Election Integrity Commission.
…John Lott, head of the gun rights advocacy group Crime Prevention Research Center, suggested such a process would ease the concerns of those worried about fraudulent voting.
“It might be a way Democrats can use a system they claim works very well to go and prove, essentially, to Republicans that there’s no fraud,” said Lott, who last year criticized the same National Instant Criminal Background Check System as a “mess.”
Every credible study of voting fraud has determined it is either virtually nonexistent or too rare to affect outcomes.
Julie Wise, the King County Elections Director, had an op-ed attacking Dr. John Lott’s testimony
…One particularly egregious presentation was given by Dr. John Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center. Relying on data from 1996 to 2004, Lott made the case that citizens should have a thorough background check — like the one used for purchasing a firearm — in order to vote.
Philip Bump had an article in the Washington Post attacking Dr. John Lott’s testimony before the president’s Election Integrity Commission. The Post did not publish Lott’s letter, but this is what was sent in:
…Dear Letters Editor:
Philip Bump doesn’t understand how the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) works and he clearly never listened to my testimony to the Election Integrity Commission (“Let’s see what happens if we take the unserious background-checks-for-voters idea seriously,” 9/12).
On September 12, 2017, the Washington Post’s Christopher Ingraham had an article attacking Dr. John Lott’s testimony before the President’s Advisory Commission on Election Integrity (video is available here and Lott’s op-ed on the testimony is here). Here is part of Ingraham’s piece:
…John Lott, an independent researcher and Fox News commentator, is best known for his book “More Guns, Less Crime,” which argues that increases in gun ownership are associated with drops in crime (most mainstream criminologists reject this view).
Christopher Ingraham, Fact Checking Bias, Letters that we submitted
UPDATE: The Des Moines Register has published a debate that we have had in the pages of their Sunday paper over the last couple of weeks.
Original post: This past Wednesday the Des Moines Register ran an editorial calling for more gun control as a way of saving medical costs. …
Dr. John Lott wrote a letter to the Arizona Capitol Times responding to a news article on August 11th titled “Controversial researcher hired to update prison population study.” Dr. Lott’s response is available here (published online August 17, 2017):
…Dear Editor:
A recent piece criticized my being hired to update a report on the Arizona prison system (Ben Giles, “Controversial researcher hired to update prison population study,” August 11).
