Dr. Lott takes on the Gun Violence Archive.....

[2aguy]

Here is a breakdown of an interview with Dr. John Lott....the foremost expert in the field of defensive gun use statistics.......and hated by anti gunners with a passion.....

Here he points out the lies of the gun violence archive.....something you see the anti gunners here use all the time.....

CPRC on National Public Radio: Trying to discuss the problems with the Gun Violence Archive - Crime Prevention Research Center

Some aren’t, but what Lott had argued during the part of the interview that was edited out was two fold:

1) Media reports rarely cover cases where people use guns defensively. If someone uses a gun defensively and the criminal runs away (as occurs in virtually all defensive gun uses), that is simply not going to be considered newsworthy even if it is reported to the newspaper. If you believe media accounts actually get virtually all the defensive gun uses, you would have to believe that about 85% of the defensive gun uses end in the criminal being killed. No one believes that. It is just that those cases are more newsworthy than cases where the criminal is wounded. Only a few percent of the cases seem to involve cases where no one is harmed.


2) There is no standard reporting for police even when they are told about DGUs. There are no reporting forms for police. Police do not report these cases to the FBI. Justifiable homicides are in theory reported by the police to the FBI, but that data for civilians is even worse than it is for the police, and I suspect you have heard how horribly bad the police data is.

 

[Brain357]

Here is a breakdown of an interview with Dr. John Lott....the foremost expert in the field of defensive gun use statistics.......and hated by anti gunners with a passion.....

Here he points out the lies of the gun violence archive.....something you see the anti gunners here use all the time.....

CPRC on National Public Radio: Trying to discuss the problems with the Gun Violence Archive - Crime Prevention Research Center

Some aren’t, but what Lott had argued during the part of the interview that was edited out was two fold:

1) Media reports rarely cover cases where people use guns defensively. If someone uses a gun defensively and the criminal runs away (as occurs in virtually all defensive gun uses), that is simply not going to be considered newsworthy even if it is reported to the newspaper. If you believe media accounts actually get virtually all the defensive gun uses, you would have to believe that about 85% of the defensive gun uses end in the criminal being killed. No one believes that. It is just that those cases are more newsworthy than cases where the criminal is wounded. Only a few percent of the cases seem to involve cases where no one is harmed.


2) There is no standard reporting for police even when they are told about DGUs. There are no reporting forms for police. Police do not report these cases to the FBI. Justifiable homicides are in theory reported by the police to the FBI, but that data for civilians is even worse than it is for the police, and I suspect you have heard how horribly bad the police data is.

Isn't that guy an economist? He should really stick to studying the economy, his gun studies are a joke. Even pro gun Kleck knows he is a joke. No serious academic supports that crazy.

 

[Brain357]

Who Is Behind the Lie That More Guns Makes Us Safe?

Furthermore, a panel of 16 researchers assembled by the National Academy of Science’s National Research Council studied Lott’s theory. Fifteen found there was “no credible evidence” for his theory.

The Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research also noted “serious flaws” in John Lott’s work, writing, “The most consistent finding across studies which correct for these flaws is that [Right to Carry] laws are associated with an increase in aggravated assaults.”

 

[Rustic]

Who Is Behind the Lie That More Guns Makes Us Safe?

Furthermore, a panel of 16 researchers assembled by the National Academy of Science’s National Research Council studied Lott’s theory. Fifteen found there was “no credible evidence” for his theory.

The Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Policy and Research also noted “serious flaws” in John Lott’s work, writing, “The most consistent finding across studies which correct for these flaws is that [Right to Carry] laws are associated with an increase in aggravated assaults.”

The Flaw is anti-gun nutters... All just control freaks...

 

[2aguy]

And some more on Lott....

http://www.nap.edu/read/10881/chapter/13

Appendix A
Dissent
James Q. Wilson

The thrust of Chapter 6 of the committee’s report is that studies purporting to show a relationship between right-to-carry (RTC) laws and crime rates are fragile. Though I am not an econometrician, I am struck by the fact that most studies of the effect of policy changes on crime rates are fragile in this sense: Different authors produce different results, and sometimes contradictory ones. This has been true of studies of the effect on crime rates of incapacitation (that is, taking criminals off the street), deterrence (that is, increasing the likelihood of conviction and imprisonment), and capital punishment. In my view, committees of the National Research Council that have dealt with these earlier studies have attempted, not simply to show that different authors have reached different conclusions, but to suggest which lines of inquiry, including data and models, are most likely to produce more robust results.

That has not happened here. Chapter 6 seeks to show that fragile results exist but not to indicate what research strategies might improve our understanding of the effects, if any, of RTC laws. To do the latter would require the committee to analyze carefully not only the studies by John Lott but those done by both his supporters and his critics. Here, only the work by Lott and his coauthors is subject to close analysis.

If this analysis of Lott’s work showed that his findings are not supported by his data and models, then the conclusion that his results are fragile might be sufficient. But my reading of this chapter suggests that some of his results survive virtually every reanalysis done by the committee.

Lott argued that murder rates decline after the adoption of RTC laws even after allowing for the effect of other variables that affect crime rates.

 

[Brain357]

Lott’s data and honesty have been repeatedly called into question by other academics. In one case, he claimed to have done a survey that found in 98 percent of cases when a weapon is used in self-defense, it was only brandished and not fired. When other academics asked for his data, Lott claimed he lost it as the result of a catastrophic hard drive crash.

 

[Brain357]

In a personally embarrassing moment, Lott was also revealed to have created an online sock puppet, Mary Rosh, who wrote positive Amazon reviews of More Guns, Less Crime exhorting, “Save your life—read this book.” Lott also used Rosh to defend himself against critics, writing messages online purportedly from her. (“YOU ARE AMAZINGLY DISHONEST. HAVE YOU ABSOLUTELY NO SHAME?” read one online comment from “Mary.”)

 

[2aguy]

Lott’s data and honesty have been repeatedly called into question by other academics. In one case, he claimed to have done a survey that found in 98 percent of cases when a weapon is used in self-defense, it was only brandished and not fired. When other academics asked for his data, Lott claimed he lost it as the result of a catastrophic hard drive crash.

No.....they have been called into question by anti gunners....who realize that his data show they are completely wrong.....in fact.....the truth that normal people carrying guns does not increase the violent crime rate or the gun murder rate has been proven through actual statistics not associated with Lott....and his research which shows crime rates are lower in states with Concealed carry laws is also proven since the 90s......

 

[2aguy]

In a personally embarrassing moment, Lott was also revealed to have created an online sock puppet, Mary Rosh, who wrote positive Amazon reviews of More Guns, Less Crime exhorting, “Save your life—read this book.” Lott also used Rosh to defend himself against critics, writing messages online purportedly from her. (“YOU ARE AMAZINGLY DISHONEST. HAVE YOU ABSOLUTELY NO SHAME?” read one online comment from “Mary.”)

Yes.....and you lie again....he has explained all of this and you know it.....to get this out of the way....this is Dr. Lott taking on all of the attacks against him....

Response to Malkin's Op-ed

Below is Malkin’s op-ed with commentary by me (my comments are indented and in italics and start at the bottom of the page with the numbered responses corresponding to the numbers in the supporting document). (Note that two other discussions on this issue have been posted since February 2003 and involve a general discussion of the two other polls that ask about brandishing that have been done over the previous two decades as well a response to other attacks are available at the bottom of the page found here.) Despite being sent this information several times, she has not responded to any of these points. Steve Malzberg and Karen Hunter, co-hosts of a morning drive time show on WWRL (1600 AM) in New York, offered to let Malkin discuss these claims with me on the air, but she was unwilling to participate. It is disappointing that she will make allegations in print and on radio shows, but that she is unwilling to defend these assertions when I am present.


The general evidence for the survey is available here. The beginning of that document provides a brief abstract of the primary points.

An overview of the evidence is this: A) The survey was redone and the redone somewhat smaller survey produced similar results. In fact that survey data was already available at www.johnlott.org when Malkin wrote her piece.
B) The survey results in the single paragraphs in the two books where I have referenced this survey data was biased against the claim that I was making. I argued that the simple defensive brandishing or warning shots are not news worthy. The higher the rate of defensive brandishing or warning shots, the easier it is to explain why the media is not biased when it doesn't cover most defensive gun uses. If I wanted to show that the media was more biased, I should have used the surveys with lower defensive brandishing rates. I have also explained why the length of the time people are asked to recall events over can explain the difference in the four surveys on brandishing that have been done over the last twenty years (two designed by me and two by Gary Kleck).
C) Two people who took the survey have said that they took it. One person, James Hamilton, was interviewed by Professor Jeff Parker at GMU. As to the second person who took the survey, James Lindgren claims that David Gross took a different 1996 survey, but Gross's statements as well as the survey data from the 1996 survey indicate that Gross took my 1997 survey. The data from the 1996 survey is available from me or from the ICPSR under Hemenway's name. Other people were able to confirm various other aspects, such as the timing of when the survey was done and that I talked to people at the time of the survey. I have also supplied my tax records from 1997 to Joe Olson a tax law professor and other professors that show large payments for research assistants. Many others have confirmed many other aspects of what happened.
Bottom line: Science involves replication and I have always made my data available to others. In this case, I redid the survey and made that data available to anyone who wants access to it.

The other Lott controversy
Michelle Malkin
February 5, 2003

For those few of us in the mainstream media who openly support Second Amendment rights, research scholar John Lott has been -- or rather, had been -- an absolute godsend.

Armed with top-notch credentials (including stints at Stanford, Rice, UCLA, Wharton, Cornell, the University of Chicago and Yale), Lott took on the entrenched anti-gun bias of the ivory tower with seemingly meticulous scholarship. His best-selling 1998 book, "More Guns, Less Crime," provided analysis of FBI crime data that showed a groundbreaking correlation between concealed-weapons laws and reduced violent crime rates.

I met Lott briefly after a seminar at the University of Washington in Seattle several years ago and was deeply impressed by his intellectual rigor. Lott responded directly and extensively to critics' arguments. He made his data accessible to many other researchers.

But as he prepares to release a new book, "Bias Against Guns," next month, Lott must grapple with an emerging controversy -- brought to the public eye by the blogosphere -- that goes to the heart of his academic integrity.

The most disturbing charge, first raised by retired University of California, Santa Barbara professor Otis Dudley Duncan and pursued by Australian computer programmer Tim Lambert, is that Lott fabricated a study claiming that 98 percent of defensive gun uses involved mere brandishing, as opposed to shooting.

When Lott cited the statistic peripherally on page three of his book, he attributed it to "national surveys." In the second edition, he changed the citation to "a national survey that I conducted." He has also incorrectly attributed the figure to newspaper polls and Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck.


1) The reference to the survey involves one number in one sentence in my book. Compared to the 98 percent number there was an earlier survey by Kleck that found 92 percent of defensive gun uses involved brandishing and warning shots and because the survey was asking people about events that occurred over a long period of time it is likely that it over emphasized more dramatic responses. (My number that is directly comparable to the 92 percent estimate is about 99 percent.) My point in the book was that defensive gun use rarely involves more “newsworthy” events where the attacker is killed and either survey would have made the general point. A general discussion of the different methodologies is provided here.


I never attributed my survey results to Kleck. What happened was that Dave Kopel from the Independence Institute took an op-ed that I had in the Rocky Mountain News and edited it for his web site. In the editing he added the incorrect reference to Kleck. (Statements from Kopel and others are provided in the supporting documents ). The two pieces are identical except for the reference to Kleck. As to the claim that I attributed the number to newspaper polls, that claim involves a misreading of two different sentences in an op-ed (see the material addressed in the second half of the link to point (1)). As to using the plural, that was an error. Given the years that have passed since I wrote the sentence, I cannot remember exactly what I had in my mind but the most plausible explanation is that I was describing what findings had been generated by the polls, in other words I was thinking of them as a collective body of research. I had been planning on including more of a discussion on the survey in the book, just as I have in my book that came out early this year, but I had a hard disk crash (see response (2)) and I lost part of the book along with the data.

More importantly, the survey results that I used were biased against the claim that I was making. The relevant discussions in both of my books focus on media bias and the point was that the lack of coverage of defense gun uses is understandable if most uses simply involve brandishing where no one is harmed, no shots fired, no dead bodies on the ground, no crime actually committed. If others believe that the actual rate of brandishing is lower and I had used the results of Kleck, it becomes MORE difficult to explain the lack of news coverage of defensive gun uses. The two short discussions that I have on this issue in my two books thus choose results that are BIASED AGAINST the overall point that I am making, that the media is biased against guns.

Some issues involving the source for Malkin's claims can be found here, here, and here.


Last fall, Northwestern University law professor James Lindgren volunteered to investigate the claimed existence of Lott's 1997 telephone survey of 2,424 people. "I thought it would be exceedingly simple to establish" that the research had been done, Lindgren wrote in his report.

Unfortunately, Malkin fails to mention that Lindgren is not an unbiased observer since I had written a journal article in Journal of Law & Politics critiquing some of his work months before he "volunteered to investigate" these claims.
It was not simple. Lott claims to have lost all of his data due to a computer crash.


2) As to the “claim” that I lost my data in a computer crash on July 3, 1997, I have offered Malkin the statements from nine academics (statements attached), four of whom I was co-authoring papers with at the time and who remember quite vividly also losing the data that we had on various projects. David Mustard at the University of Georgia spent considerable time during 1997 helping me replace gun crime data. Other academics worked with me to replace data on our other projects. Just so it is clear, this computer crash basically cost me all my data on all my projects up to that point in time, including all the data and word files for my book, More Guns, Less Crime, and numerous papers that were under review at journals. The next couple of years were hell trying to replace things and the data for this survey which ended up being one sentence in the book, was not of particular importance. However, all the data was replaced, including not only the large county level data, the state level data, as well as the survey data, when the survey was redone.
He financed the survey himself and kept no financial records.


* Unlike many academics, I have never asked for government support for my research. Nothing different or unusual was done in this case. While we still have the tax forms that we filed that show we made large expenditures on research assistants that year, my wife keeps our financial documents for the three years required by the IRS. I have provided my tax records from that year to several professors. Among them is a tax expert, Professor Joe Olson, at Hamline University in Minnesota, and he can verify this information. I have checked with the bank that we had an account with, but they only keep records five years back. Since wild claims have been made about the costs of the survey, some notion of its scope would be useful. The survey was structured so that over 90 percent of those questioned would only have to answer three short questions and those were usually completed in under 30 seconds. Less than one percent of those surveyed would actually answer as many as seven questions and even in that case the survey only took about two minutes. The appendix in The Bias Against Guns provides a description of the survey when it was replicated.
He has forgotten the names of the students who allegedly helped with the survey and who supposedly dialed thousands of survey respondents long-distance from their own dorm rooms using survey software Lott can't identify or produce.


* I have hired lots of student RAs over the years. Since I have been at AEI in the last couple of years I have had around 25 people work for me on various projects. The students in question worked for me during the very beginning of 1997. While I can usually reconstruct who has worked for me, it requires that I have that material written down. The information on these students was lost in the hard disk crash and given that I had lost data for other projects such as three revise-and-resubmits that I had at the Journal of Political Economy it was not a particularly high priority.


I don’t have the original CD with telephone numbers from across the country that was used to obtain telephone numbers, but I have kept one that I obtained later in 1997 when I was considering redoing the survey and I still have that available.
Assuming the survey data was lost in a computer crash, it is still remarkable that Lott could not produce a single, contemporaneous scrap of paper proving the survey's existence, such as the research protocol or survey instrument.


3) I have statements from two people who took the survey and other confirmatory evidence. As to the written material, being asked for written material six years after the survey is a long time. After the survey was done, the material was kept on my computer. In addition, I have moved three times (Chicago to Yale to Pennsylvania to AEI) as well as changed offices at Chicago and Yale since the summer of 1997. Yet, besides the statements from the academics who can verify the hard disk crash as well as the statement of those who participated in the survey, I do have statements David Mustard, who I had talked to numerous times about doing the survey with me during 1996 and who remembers after that us talking about the survey after it was completed. He is “fairly confident” that those conversations took place during 1997. John Whitley and Geoff Huck also have some recollections. Russell Roberts, now a professor at George Mason, was someone else that I talked to about the survey, but he simply can’t remember one way of the other. I didn’t talk to people other than co-authors about the survey and the research that I was doing on guns generally. This is because of the often great hostility to my gun work and also because I didn’t want to give those who disliked me a heads-up on what I was doing. I did have the questions from the survey and they were reused in the replicated survey in 2002.
After Lindgren's report was published, a Minnesota gun rights activist named David Gross came forward, claiming he was surveyed in 1997. Some have said that Gross's account proves that the survey was done. I think skepticism is warranted.


4) David Gross is the only person who Malkin mentions and she doubts his statements. Gross, a former city prosecutor, does have strong feelings on guns, but that is one reason why he remembers talking to me about the survey when I gave a talk in Minnesota a couple of years after the survey. There was no other gun survey on the questions that I asked during 1997. And another survey that was given close in time, during the beginning of 1996, was dramatically different from mine (e.g., the 1996 survey was done by a polling firm (not by students), was very long with at least 32 open ended questions (not something that could be done in a few minutes), involved Harvard (not Chicago), did not ask about brandishing, etc.). What Gross remembers indicates that it could only have been my survey.


Malkin also selectively quotes Lindgren. Lindgren told the Washington Times that, “I interviewed [Mr. Gross] at length and found him credible.” Mr. Gross has also responded to later statements made by Lindgren.

I have also had a second person who participated interviewed by Jeff Parker, the former associate dean at the George Mason University Law School. Parker interviewed both James Hamilton as well as Hamilton's sister, who claims that James told her about the interview when it occurred, and he can verify this information.


Lindgren claimed that Gross had instead answered a quite different survey done by Hemenway at Harvard, but when Hemenway finally released the data from both his 1996 and 1999 surveys and the age and other information about Gross and Hamilton do not match any subject interviewed in either survey.


Lott now admits he used a fake persona, "Mary Rosh," to post voluminous defenses of his work over the Internet.

* When Julian Sanchez asked about the similarities between my writings and those posted under this Internet chat room pseudonym during this past January I did admit it immediately. (Sanchez had put up a post on his blog site asking for help in identifying someone who was cutting and pasting many of my responses from other places in chat room discussions. Because a dynamic IP address was being used, Sanchez could only identify the posting as coming from someone in southeastern Pennsylvania. When I found that he was asking for help in identifying the poster I admitted that I was using the pseudonym.) I had originally used my own name in chat rooms but switched after receiving threatening and obnoxious telephone calls from other Internet posters. Ninety some percent of the posters in the chatroom were pretty clearly using pseudonyms. The fictitious name was from a family e-mail account we had set up for our children based on their names (see latter discussion), on a couple of occasions I used the female persona implied by the name in the chat rooms to try to get people to think about how people who are smaller and weaker physically can defend themselves. Virtually all the posting were on factual issues involving guns and the empirical debates surrounding them. All that information was completely accurate.
"Rosh" gushed that Lott was "the best professor that I ever had."


*This was a family email account and I was not the only person who posted using this account.
She/he also penned an effusive review of "More Guns, Less Crime" on Amazon.com: "It was very interesting reading and Lott writes very well." (Lott claims that one of his sons posted the review in "Rosh's" name.)


*The e-mail account was set up by my wife for my four sons (Maxim, Ryan, Roger, and Sherwin in birth order) and involves the first two letters of each of their names in order of their birth. Maxim wrote several reviews on Amazon.com using that e-mail account and signed in using [email protected], not “Mary Rosh.” His posting included not only a review of my book, but also reviews of computer games such as Caesars III.


For whatever it is worth, a recent glich at Amazon.com revealed that it is quite common practice for authors to actually write positive anonymous reviews of their own books. The New York Times story on this revelation was actually quite sympathetic, which contrasts with the attack that the New York Times had on me when it also incorrectly claimed that I had written the review of my book.
Just last week, "Rosh" complained on a blog comment board: "Critics such as Lambert and Lindgren ought to slink away and hide."

By itself, there is nothing wrong with using a pseudonym. But Lott's invention of Mary Rosh to praise his own research and blast other scholars is beyond creepy. And it shows his extensive willingness to deceive to protect and promote his work.


*It would have been helpful if Malkin had actually read the text of what I wrote.
Some Second Amendment activists believe there is an anti-gun conspiracy to discredit Lott as "payback" for the fall of Michael Bellesiles, the disgraced former Emory University professor who engaged in rampant research fraud to bolster his anti-gun book, "Arming America." But it wasn't an anti-gun zealot who unmasked Rosh/Lott. It was Internet blogger Julian Sanchez, a staffer at the libertarian Cato Institute, which staunchly defends the Second Amendment. And it was the conservative Washington Times that first reported last week on the survey dispute in the mainstream press.


*The January 23rd story in the Washington Times could not accurately be described as a negative story. Professor Dan Polsby is quoted as saying that I was “vindicated.” Even Lindgren, a critic whose academic work I have criticized in the past (Journal of Law and Politics, Winter 2001), is characterized by the Times as believing that “ the question appears to have been at least partially resolved . . . “ and he did say that David Gross was a credible witness.
In an interview Monday, Lott stressed that his new defensive gun use survey (whose results will be published in the new book) will show similar results to the lost survey. But the existence of the new survey does not lay to rest the still lingering doubts about the old survey's existence.


*She never asked me any questions about whether the old survey was done.
The media coverage of the 1997 survey data dispute, Lott told me, is "a bunch to do about nothing."


*This quote is totally taken out of context. Some people had accused me of violating federal regulations regarding federal approval for human experiments while I was at Chicago. Malkin’s telephone call focused on that claim, and that is what my quote referred to.
I wish I could agree.



I spent years replacing the data lost in the hard disk crash. The county level crime data was replaced and given out to academics at dozens of universities so that they could replicate every single regression in More Guns, Less Crime. I have also made the data for my other book The Bias Against Guns available at http://www.johnlott.org/cgi-bin/login.cgi . The data for my other reserach has also been made available. The survey was also replicated and obtained similar results to the first survey and the new data has been made available since the beginning of the year. When asked I have even made my data available before the research was published. I don't think that there are any academics who have had a better record then I have in making my data available to other researchers. For an example of just on of my recent critics who has refused to share his data see here . I have provided Malkin with the information noted here, but she has never replied to e-mails that I have sent her.

 

[2aguy]

In a personally embarrassing moment, Lott was also revealed to have created an online sock puppet, Mary Rosh, who wrote positive Amazon reviews of More Guns, Less Crime exhorting, “Save your life—read this book.” Lott also used Rosh to defend himself against critics, writing messages online purportedly from her. (“YOU ARE AMAZINGLY DISHONEST. HAVE YOU ABSOLUTELY NO SHAME?” read one online comment from “Mary.”)

Here...directly...


Lott now admits he used a fake persona, "Mary Rosh," to post voluminous defenses of his work over the Internet.

* When Julian Sanchez asked about the similarities between my writings and those posted under this Internet chat room pseudonym during this past January I did admit it immediately. (Sanchez had put up a post on his blog site asking for help in identifying someone who was cutting and pasting many of my responses from other places in chat room discussions. Because a dynamic IP address was being used, Sanchez could only identify the posting as coming from someone in southeastern Pennsylvania. When I found that he was asking for help in identifying the poster I admitted that I was using the pseudonym.) I had originally used my own name in chat rooms but switched after receiving threatening and obnoxious telephone calls from other Internet posters. Ninety some percent of the posters in the chatroom were pretty clearly using pseudonyms. The fictitious name was from a family e-mail account we had set up for our children based on their names (see latter discussion), on a couple of occasions I used the female persona implied by the name in the chat rooms to try to get people to think about how people who are smaller and weaker physically can defend themselves. Virtually all the posting were on factual issues involving guns and the empirical debates surrounding them. All that information was completely accurate.
"Rosh" gushed that Lott was "the best professor that I ever had."


*This was a family email account and I was not the only person who posted using this account.
She/he also penned an effusive review of "More Guns, Less Crime" on Amazon.com: "It was very interesting reading and Lott writes very well." (Lott claims that one of his sons posted the review in "Rosh's" name.)


*The e-mail account was set up by my wife for my four sons (Maxim, Ryan, Roger, and Sherwin in birth order) and involves the first two letters of each of their names in order of their birth. Maxim wrote several reviews on Amazon.com using that e-mail account and signed in using [email protected], not “Mary Rosh.” His posting included not only a review of my book, but also reviews of computer games such as Caesars III.

 

[Brain357]

Lott’s data and honesty have been repeatedly called into question by other academics. In one case, he claimed to have done a survey that found in 98 percent of cases when a weapon is used in self-defense, it was only brandished and not fired. When other academics asked for his data, Lott claimed he lost it as the result of a catastrophic hard drive crash.

No.....they have been called into question by anti gunners....who realize that his data show they are completely wrong.....in fact.....the truth that normal people carrying guns does not increase the violent crime rate or the gun murder rate has been proven through actual statistics not associated with Lott....and his research which shows crime rates are lower in states with Concealed carry laws is also proven since the 90s......

No you mean academics. Even one of your favorites Kleck knows Lott is a joke.

Finally, Lott claims that “the vast majority of” studies of the impact of right-to-carry laws indicate that they reduce crime. Unlike Lott, I do not believe that truth is determined by majority vote. It is not the most popular conclusion that is most likely to be correct; it is the one supported by the methodologically strongest research, no matter how numerous or rare the technically stronger studies may be. Lott’s primary research, and that of others who drew the same conclusions, relied on county crime data that were essentially worthless for tracking crime trends before and after right-to-carry laws were passed, because they did not correct for widespread failures of law enforcement agencies to report their crime data to the Uniform Crime Reporting program. The technically soundest studies that were not afflicted by this problem have found that right-to-carry laws have no net effect one way or the other on crime rates.

Gary Kleck and John Lott Offer Closing Thoughts in Dispute over Gun Research | Ari Armstrong

 

[2aguy]

Lott’s data and honesty have been repeatedly called into question by other academics. In one case, he claimed to have done a survey that found in 98 percent of cases when a weapon is used in self-defense, it was only brandished and not fired. When other academics asked for his data, Lott claimed he lost it as the result of a catastrophic hard drive crash.

And to this lie.....


1) The reference to the survey involves one number in one sentence in my book. Compared to the 98 percent number there was an earlier survey by Kleck that found 92 percent of defensive gun uses involved brandishing and warning shots and because the survey was asking people about events that occurred over a long period of time it is likely that it over emphasized more dramatic responses. (My number that is directly comparable to the 92 percent estimate is about 99 percent.) My point in the book was that defensive gun use rarely involves more “newsworthy” events where the attacker is killed and either survey would have made the general point. A general discussion of the different methodologies is provided here.


I never attributed my survey results to Kleck.

What happened was that Dave Kopel from the Independence Institute took an op-ed that I had in the Rocky Mountain News and edited it for his web site. In the editing he added the incorrect reference to Kleck. (Statements from Kopel and others are provided in the supporting documents ).

The two pieces are identical except for the reference to Kleck. As to the claim that I attributed the number to newspaper polls, that claim involves a misreading of two different sentences in an op-ed (see the material addressed in the second half of the link to point (1)).

As to using the plural, that was an error. Given the years that have passed since I wrote the sentence, I cannot remember exactly what I had in my mind but the most plausible explanation is that I was describing what findings had been generated by the polls, in other words I was thinking of them as a collective body of research. I had been planning on including more of a discussion on the survey in the book, just as I have in my book that came out early this year, but I had a hard disk crash (see response (2)) and I lost part of the book along with the data.

More importantly, the survey results that I used were biased against the claim that I was making. The relevant discussions in both of my books focus on media bias and the point was that the lack of coverage of defense gun uses is understandable if most uses simply involve brandishing where no one is harmed, no shots fired, no dead bodies on the ground, no crime actually committed. If others believe that the actual rate of brandishing is lower and I had used the results of Kleck, it becomes MORE difficult to explain the lack of news coverage of defensive gun uses. The two short discussions that I have on this issue in my two books thus choose results that are BIASED AGAINST the overall point that I am making, that the media is biased against guns.

 

[2aguy]

Lott’s data and honesty have been repeatedly called into question by other academics. In one case, he claimed to have done a survey that found in 98 percent of cases when a weapon is used in self-defense, it was only brandished and not fired. When other academics asked for his data, Lott claimed he lost it as the result of a catastrophic hard drive crash.

No.....they have been called into question by anti gunners....who realize that his data show they are completely wrong.....in fact.....the truth that normal people carrying guns does not increase the violent crime rate or the gun murder rate has been proven through actual statistics not associated with Lott....and his research which shows crime rates are lower in states with Concealed carry laws is also proven since the 90s......

No you mean academics. Even one of your favorites Kleck knows Lott is a joke.

Finally, Lott claims that “the vast majority of” studies of the impact of right-to-carry laws indicate that they reduce crime. Unlike Lott, I do not believe that truth is determined by majority vote. It is not the most popular conclusion that is most likely to be correct; it is the one supported by the methodologically strongest research, no matter how numerous or rare the technically stronger studies may be. Lott’s primary research, and that of others who drew the same conclusions, relied on county crime data that were essentially worthless for tracking crime trends before and after right-to-carry laws were passed, because they did not correct for widespread failures of law enforcement agencies to report their crime data to the Uniform Crime Reporting program. The technically soundest studies that were not afflicted by this problem have found that right-to-carry laws have no net effect one way or the other on crime rates.

Gary Kleck and John Lott Offer Closing Thoughts in Dispute over Gun Research | Ari Armstrong

Lies and more lies......it is actual research....not pulling numbers out of your ass and saying....hey....I like the sound of that number so it must be right.


Lott did everything a researcher needs to do and his critics failed to actually use the research he had to test his results.....they then refused to admit their mistake....

Do Right-to-carry laws reduce violent crime? - Crime Prevention Research Center



For the data errors in the one published paper by Aneja, Donohue, and Zhang that claims to find a bad effect from right-to-carry laws on aggravated assaults see this paper.

In addition, Aneja, Donohue, and Zhang have retracted their original claim that the my research could not be replicated. Their argument was that Aneja, Donohue, and Zhang could not replicate the replication work done by the National Research Council that had replicated my research.



In an Erratum note published in October 2012 they concede: “Subsequent to the publication of this article, members of the NRC panel demonstrated to the authors that the results in question were replicable if the authors used the data and statistical models described in Chapter 6 of the NRC (2004) report.”

 

[Brain357]

Lott’s data and honesty have been repeatedly called into question by other academics. In one case, he claimed to have done a survey that found in 98 percent of cases when a weapon is used in self-defense, it was only brandished and not fired. When other academics asked for his data, Lott claimed he lost it as the result of a catastrophic hard drive crash.

No.....they have been called into question by anti gunners....who realize that his data show they are completely wrong.....in fact.....the truth that normal people carrying guns does not increase the violent crime rate or the gun murder rate has been proven through actual statistics not associated with Lott....and his research which shows crime rates are lower in states with Concealed carry laws is also proven since the 90s......

No you mean academics. Even one of your favorites Kleck knows Lott is a joke.

Finally, Lott claims that “the vast majority of” studies of the impact of right-to-carry laws indicate that they reduce crime. Unlike Lott, I do not believe that truth is determined by majority vote. It is not the most popular conclusion that is most likely to be correct; it is the one supported by the methodologically strongest research, no matter how numerous or rare the technically stronger studies may be. Lott’s primary research, and that of others who drew the same conclusions, relied on county crime data that were essentially worthless for tracking crime trends before and after right-to-carry laws were passed, because they did not correct for widespread failures of law enforcement agencies to report their crime data to the Uniform Crime Reporting program. The technically soundest studies that were not afflicted by this problem have found that right-to-carry laws have no net effect one way or the other on crime rates.

Gary Kleck and John Lott Offer Closing Thoughts in Dispute over Gun Research | Ari Armstrong

Lies and more lies......it is actual research....not pulling numbers out of your ass and saying....hey....I like the sound of that number so it must be right.


Lott did everything a researcher needs to do and his critics failed to actually use the research he had to test his results.....they then refused to admit their mistake....

Do Right-to-carry laws reduce violent crime? - Crime Prevention Research Center



For the data errors in the one published paper by Aneja, Donohue, and Zhang that claims to find a bad effect from right-to-carry laws on aggravated assaults see this paper.

In addition, Aneja, Donohue, and Zhang have retracted their original claim that the my research could not be replicated. Their argument was that Aneja, Donohue, and Zhang could not replicate the replication work done by the National Research Council that had replicated my research.



In an Erratum note published in October 2012 they concede: “Subsequent to the publication of this article, members of the NRC panel demonstrated to the authors that the results in question were replicable if the authors used the data and statistical models described in Chapter 6 of the NRC (2004) report.”

Nobody who can be taken seriously supports lotts work.

 

[2aguy]

Lott’s data and honesty have been repeatedly called into question by other academics. In one case, he claimed to have done a survey that found in 98 percent of cases when a weapon is used in self-defense, it was only brandished and not fired. When other academics asked for his data, Lott claimed he lost it as the result of a catastrophic hard drive crash.

No.....they have been called into question by anti gunners....who realize that his data show they are completely wrong.....in fact.....the truth that normal people carrying guns does not increase the violent crime rate or the gun murder rate has been proven through actual statistics not associated with Lott....and his research which shows crime rates are lower in states with Concealed carry laws is also proven since the 90s......

No you mean academics. Even one of your favorites Kleck knows Lott is a joke.

Finally, Lott claims that “the vast majority of” studies of the impact of right-to-carry laws indicate that they reduce crime. Unlike Lott, I do not believe that truth is determined by majority vote. It is not the most popular conclusion that is most likely to be correct; it is the one supported by the methodologically strongest research, no matter how numerous or rare the technically stronger studies may be. Lott’s primary research, and that of others who drew the same conclusions, relied on county crime data that were essentially worthless for tracking crime trends before and after right-to-carry laws were passed, because they did not correct for widespread failures of law enforcement agencies to report their crime data to the Uniform Crime Reporting program. The technically soundest studies that were not afflicted by this problem have found that right-to-carry laws have no net effect one way or the other on crime rates.

Gary Kleck and John Lott Offer Closing Thoughts in Dispute over Gun Research | Ari Armstrong

Yes.......that is a good read...it goes into how economists and sociologists differ in how they think cause and effect work.......with Kleck not believing that changing behavior impacts crime.....

 

[Brain357]

Lott’s data and honesty have been repeatedly called into question by other academics. In one case, he claimed to have done a survey that found in 98 percent of cases when a weapon is used in self-defense, it was only brandished and not fired. When other academics asked for his data, Lott claimed he lost it as the result of a catastrophic hard drive crash.

No.....they have been called into question by anti gunners....who realize that his data show they are completely wrong.....in fact.....the truth that normal people carrying guns does not increase the violent crime rate or the gun murder rate has been proven through actual statistics not associated with Lott....and his research which shows crime rates are lower in states with Concealed carry laws is also proven since the 90s......

No you mean academics. Even one of your favorites Kleck knows Lott is a joke.

Finally, Lott claims that “the vast majority of” studies of the impact of right-to-carry laws indicate that they reduce crime. Unlike Lott, I do not believe that truth is determined by majority vote. It is not the most popular conclusion that is most likely to be correct; it is the one supported by the methodologically strongest research, no matter how numerous or rare the technically stronger studies may be. Lott’s primary research, and that of others who drew the same conclusions, relied on county crime data that were essentially worthless for tracking crime trends before and after right-to-carry laws were passed, because they did not correct for widespread failures of law enforcement agencies to report their crime data to the Uniform Crime Reporting program. The technically soundest studies that were not afflicted by this problem have found that right-to-carry laws have no net effect one way or the other on crime rates.

Gary Kleck and John Lott Offer Closing Thoughts in Dispute over Gun Research | Ari Armstrong

Lies and more lies......it is actual research....not pulling numbers out of your ass and saying....hey....I like the sound of that number so it must be right.


Lott did everything a researcher needs to do and his critics failed to actually use the research he had to test his results.....they then refused to admit their mistake....

Do Right-to-carry laws reduce violent crime? - Crime Prevention Research Center



For the data errors in the one published paper by Aneja, Donohue, and Zhang that claims to find a bad effect from right-to-carry laws on aggravated assaults see this paper.

In addition, Aneja, Donohue, and Zhang have retracted their original claim that the my research could not be replicated. Their argument was that Aneja, Donohue, and Zhang could not replicate the replication work done by the National Research Council that had replicated my research.



In an Erratum note published in October 2012 they concede: “Subsequent to the publication of this article, members of the NRC panel demonstrated to the authors that the results in question were replicable if the authors used the data and statistical models described in Chapter 6 of the NRC (2004) report.”

According to academics including Kleck he did it wrong.

 

[2aguy]

Lott’s data and honesty have been repeatedly called into question by other academics. In one case, he claimed to have done a survey that found in 98 percent of cases when a weapon is used in self-defense, it was only brandished and not fired. When other academics asked for his data, Lott claimed he lost it as the result of a catastrophic hard drive crash.

No.....they have been called into question by anti gunners....who realize that his data show they are completely wrong.....in fact.....the truth that normal people carrying guns does not increase the violent crime rate or the gun murder rate has been proven through actual statistics not associated with Lott....and his research which shows crime rates are lower in states with Concealed carry laws is also proven since the 90s......

No you mean academics. Even one of your favorites Kleck knows Lott is a joke.

Finally, Lott claims that “the vast majority of” studies of the impact of right-to-carry laws indicate that they reduce crime. Unlike Lott, I do not believe that truth is determined by majority vote. It is not the most popular conclusion that is most likely to be correct; it is the one supported by the methodologically strongest research, no matter how numerous or rare the technically stronger studies may be. Lott’s primary research, and that of others who drew the same conclusions, relied on county crime data that were essentially worthless for tracking crime trends before and after right-to-carry laws were passed, because they did not correct for widespread failures of law enforcement agencies to report their crime data to the Uniform Crime Reporting program. The technically soundest studies that were not afflicted by this problem have found that right-to-carry laws have no net effect one way or the other on crime rates.

Gary Kleck and John Lott Offer Closing Thoughts in Dispute over Gun Research | Ari Armstrong

Lies and more lies......it is actual research....not pulling numbers out of your ass and saying....hey....I like the sound of that number so it must be right.


Lott did everything a researcher needs to do and his critics failed to actually use the research he had to test his results.....they then refused to admit their mistake....

Do Right-to-carry laws reduce violent crime? - Crime Prevention Research Center



For the data errors in the one published paper by Aneja, Donohue, and Zhang that claims to find a bad effect from right-to-carry laws on aggravated assaults see this paper.

In addition, Aneja, Donohue, and Zhang have retracted their original claim that the my research could not be replicated. Their argument was that Aneja, Donohue, and Zhang could not replicate the replication work done by the National Research Council that had replicated my research.



In an Erratum note published in October 2012 they concede: “Subsequent to the publication of this article, members of the NRC panel demonstrated to the authors that the results in question were replicable if the authors used the data and statistical models described in Chapter 6 of the NRC (2004) report.”

Nobody who can be taken seriously supports lotts work.

Says the anti gunner who realizes that the entire belief system about guns in America is a lie and a myth.....and that Lott exposes this is why you guys attack him....considering he is only one of many actual researchers who come to his conclusions....as I show over and over ........

 

[Brain357]

Lott’s data and honesty have been repeatedly called into question by other academics. In one case, he claimed to have done a survey that found in 98 percent of cases when a weapon is used in self-defense, it was only brandished and not fired. When other academics asked for his data, Lott claimed he lost it as the result of a catastrophic hard drive crash.

No.....they have been called into question by anti gunners....who realize that his data show they are completely wrong.....in fact.....the truth that normal people carrying guns does not increase the violent crime rate or the gun murder rate has been proven through actual statistics not associated with Lott....and his research which shows crime rates are lower in states with Concealed carry laws is also proven since the 90s......

No you mean academics. Even one of your favorites Kleck knows Lott is a joke.

Finally, Lott claims that “the vast majority of” studies of the impact of right-to-carry laws indicate that they reduce crime. Unlike Lott, I do not believe that truth is determined by majority vote. It is not the most popular conclusion that is most likely to be correct; it is the one supported by the methodologically strongest research, no matter how numerous or rare the technically stronger studies may be. Lott’s primary research, and that of others who drew the same conclusions, relied on county crime data that were essentially worthless for tracking crime trends before and after right-to-carry laws were passed, because they did not correct for widespread failures of law enforcement agencies to report their crime data to the Uniform Crime Reporting program. The technically soundest studies that were not afflicted by this problem have found that right-to-carry laws have no net effect one way or the other on crime rates.

Gary Kleck and John Lott Offer Closing Thoughts in Dispute over Gun Research | Ari Armstrong

Lies and more lies......it is actual research....not pulling numbers out of your ass and saying....hey....I like the sound of that number so it must be right.


Lott did everything a researcher needs to do and his critics failed to actually use the research he had to test his results.....they then refused to admit their mistake....

Do Right-to-carry laws reduce violent crime? - Crime Prevention Research Center



For the data errors in the one published paper by Aneja, Donohue, and Zhang that claims to find a bad effect from right-to-carry laws on aggravated assaults see this paper.

In addition, Aneja, Donohue, and Zhang have retracted their original claim that the my research could not be replicated. Their argument was that Aneja, Donohue, and Zhang could not replicate the replication work done by the National Research Council that had replicated my research.



In an Erratum note published in October 2012 they concede: “Subsequent to the publication of this article, members of the NRC panel demonstrated to the authors that the results in question were replicable if the authors used the data and statistical models described in Chapter 6 of the NRC (2004) report.”

Nobody who can be taken seriously supports lotts work.

Says the anti gunner who realizes that the entire belief system about guns in America is a lie and a myth.....and that Lott exposes this is why you guys attack him....considering he is only one of many actual researchers who come to his conclusions....as I show over and over ........

Yes Kleck is a real anti gunner. You are a gun nut who believes any lies you are fed.

 

[C_Clayton_Jones]

"Dr. Lott"

lol

Lott has been completely discredited.

 

[2aguy]

Lott’s data and honesty have been repeatedly called into question by other academics. In one case, he claimed to have done a survey that found in 98 percent of cases when a weapon is used in self-defense, it was only brandished and not fired. When other academics asked for his data, Lott claimed he lost it as the result of a catastrophic hard drive crash.

No.....they have been called into question by anti gunners....who realize that his data show they are completely wrong.....in fact.....the truth that normal people carrying guns does not increase the violent crime rate or the gun murder rate has been proven through actual statistics not associated with Lott....and his research which shows crime rates are lower in states with Concealed carry laws is also proven since the 90s......

No you mean academics. Even one of your favorites Kleck knows Lott is a joke.

Finally, Lott claims that “the vast majority of” studies of the impact of right-to-carry laws indicate that they reduce crime. Unlike Lott, I do not believe that truth is determined by majority vote. It is not the most popular conclusion that is most likely to be correct; it is the one supported by the methodologically strongest research, no matter how numerous or rare the technically stronger studies may be. Lott’s primary research, and that of others who drew the same conclusions, relied on county crime data that were essentially worthless for tracking crime trends before and after right-to-carry laws were passed, because they did not correct for widespread failures of law enforcement agencies to report their crime data to the Uniform Crime Reporting program. The technically soundest studies that were not afflicted by this problem have found that right-to-carry laws have no net effect one way or the other on crime rates.

Gary Kleck and John Lott Offer Closing Thoughts in Dispute over Gun Research | Ari Armstrong

Lies and more lies......it is actual research....not pulling numbers out of your ass and saying....hey....I like the sound of that number so it must be right.


Lott did everything a researcher needs to do and his critics failed to actually use the research he had to test his results.....they then refused to admit their mistake....

Do Right-to-carry laws reduce violent crime? - Crime Prevention Research Center



For the data errors in the one published paper by Aneja, Donohue, and Zhang that claims to find a bad effect from right-to-carry laws on aggravated assaults see this paper.

In addition, Aneja, Donohue, and Zhang have retracted their original claim that the my research could not be replicated. Their argument was that Aneja, Donohue, and Zhang could not replicate the replication work done by the National Research Council that had replicated my research.



In an Erratum note published in October 2012 they concede: “Subsequent to the publication of this article, members of the NRC panel demonstrated to the authors that the results in question were replicable if the authors used the data and statistical models described in Chapter 6 of the NRC (2004) report.”

According to academics including Kleck he did it wrong.

Wow.....you can't stop lying......

A look at peer reviewed economists and sociologists and what they believe the research in the field shows.....

Economists' and Criminologists' Views on Guns: Crime, Suicides, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handgun Laws by John R. Lott, Gary A. Mauser :: SSRN

Abstract:
Economists and Criminologists have very different models of human behavior. A total of 74 out of all 130 academics who published peer-reviewed empirical research on gun issues in criminology and economics journals responded to our survey. T

hat was a 57% response rate. Looking at their views on their views on deterrence and regulations generally, our survey finds that these two groups have very different views on gun regulations that vary in systematic, predictable ways.

Our survey results are consistent with those predictions and statistically significant.


While economists tend to view guns as making people safer, criminologists hold this position less strongly.

Combining all the economists and criminologists together shows that researchers believe that guns are used more in self-defense than in crime;

gun-free zones attract criminals;



concealed handgun permit holders are much more law-abiding than the typical American;

and that permitted concealed handguns lower the murder rate.

All those results are statistically significant. The survey of economists was conducted from August 25th to September 12th 2014. The survey of criminologists was conducted from May 29th to June 14th 2015.