Tag Archives: john lott

Gun Rights Policy Conference – Key Gun Rights Advocates to Speak – John Lott

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Dave Workman reports on the upcoming Gun Rights Policy Conference to be held in Orlando. The slate of speakers and topics to be discussed are impressive.

The 27th annual Gun Rights Policy Conference convenes one week from today at the Hyatt Regency Orlando International Airport hotel, and this year’s event will underscore the rising interest in gun ownership, and how that may affect the November election.

Sponsored by the Bellevue-based Second Amendment Foundation and Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms, the GRPC theme this year is “Elect Liberty.” As noted by this column here and here, the conference will feature appearances by researcher John Lott and gun rights hero Otis McDonald. . . .

Read more about the Gun Rights Policy Conference here

Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America Adam Winkler’s Recent Book

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Gunfight: The Battle over the Right to Bear Arms in America Adam Winkler’s Recent Book

I was interested in Winkler’s book, as some are touting it as a history of gun control that has racist roots. It might be good in some areas, but after going to Amazon and reading John Lott’s review (gentle, but straightforward), I decided not to purchase the book. I highly respect John Lott’s opinion (author of More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws, Third Edition (Studies in Law and Economics), and when he states that there are inaccuracies and that certain positions are distorted, I take notice.

I might still read Gunfight in the future, but it is not on my current reading list.

Negative Reviews of Adam Winkler’s GunFight

Fast and Furious – Justice Department Responds to Congressional Investigation – New York Times Reports

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Fast and Furious – Justice Department Responds to Congressional Investigation – New York Times Reports

These couple of paragraphs from the NYT article indicate, in my opinion, the DOJ’s continuing effort to deflect criticism from the current Fast and Furious investigation to the earlier Operation Wide Receiver operation. I’ve quoted the first paragraphs of the NYT article. Read that and then see below it to what John Lott has already said about the two gun operations.

By CHARLIE SAVAGE [New York Times]

WASHINGTON — The Justice Department on Friday turned over to Congress nearly 1,400 pages of “highly deliberative internal communications” about the drafting of a February letter in an effort to show that agency officials did not knowingly mislead lawmakers in connection with a disputed gun trafficking investigation called Operation Fast and Furious.

Officials now acknowledge that the claim was misleading. It has come to light that A.T.F. agents in Arizona have on several occasions, dating to a 2006 investigation called Operation Wide Receiver, tried to identify the leaders of gun-trafficking networks by allowing lower-level suspects to transfer guns — and have lost track of weapons in the process. . . .

Read the rest of the NYT article here.

But, the problem here is what John Lott has already shown in an earlier article I posted, the two operations, Fast and Furious and Operation Wide Receiver are very different in how they were carried out. Wide Receiver had in place ‘guntracing’, and they notified the Mexican government about the weapons so that they could be traced or tracked. Fast and Furious didn’t do any ‘guntracing’ nor did it notify the Mexican government, according to John Lott.

See John Lott’s earlier analysis and comparison of Operation Wide Receiver and Fast and Furious here.

John Lott – Serious [and Unanswered] Questions Remain About Guntracing and the “Fast and Furious” Operation

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John Lott – Serious [and Unanswered] Questions Remain About Guntracing and the “Fast and Furious” Operation

One has to appreciate John Lott’s analysis and comparison of Bush’s Wide Receiver operation and Obama’s “Fast and Furious.” They are very different in how they were handled. Lott also points out that some major media stories from the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal have missed this absolutely critical distinction. Lott’s questions are in the third paragraph of the quote below, and he asks “Why?”. One possible answer is that Fast and Furious might have been designed to help bring in more gun control laws in the USA. That is rather disturbing to think about it.

. . . A widely run Associated Press story last week by Pete Yost pointed out that both the Bush and Obama programs involved “gun-walking.” Yet somehow Yost managed to leave out the very central point about tracing. Other articles, such as those in the Washington Post and the Wall Street Journal, have likewise left out this important point.

What is really missed by all this is the utter failure of gun tracing programs. The problem isn’t really that the Obama administration simply screwed up the tracing plan. Few guns move from the U.S. to Mexico and just as drug cartels bring in drugs from other countries, they can bring in the weapons that they need to protect those drugs. Mexican drug cartels aren’t getting their machine guns, grenades, and rocket launchers from the United States.

Why would the Obama administration not trace the guns? Why would they not inform Mexican officials about the program? One hopes that it was sheer incompetence combined with a desire to stonewall any investigation, but the fact that people knew that the guns weren’t being traced raises questions even about this plan.

The only other possibility — deliberately increasing the number of guns sold to increase the share of crime guns in Mexico from the United States and thus generate support for more gun control — is conceivable if only because “Fast and Furious” started at the same time that Obama began his campaign falsely claiming that most Mexican crime guns came from the United States.

We can only hope that even for the Obama administration that scenario is too cynical to be possible.

Read John Lott’s analysis here.

John Lott – “Armageddon Never Happened When Hand Gun Bans Were Lifted In DC and Chicago”

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John Lott – “Armageddon Never Happened When Hand Gun Bans Were Lifted In DC and Chicago”

What did you expect?

Well, if you were Chicago’s Mayor Daley you expected a return to the Old West, or if you were DC Mayor Fenty you expected an increase in violence. And, you would have been wrong on both counts.

John Lott brings us up-to-date with an excellent article on the drop in crime rates in Washington DC and Chicago. And no, it didn’t happen with draconian gun control laws. . . it happened when the hand gun bans were lifted.

Dr. Lott’s research has shown over the years, More Guns, Less Crime.

Read John Lott’s article on crime rate drops in DC and Chicago.

Want the truth about Gun Control? Read his book, because you won’t find these things in the national mainstream media who are totally biased against guns.

Vanderbilt University – One Student’s Opinion on Campus Concealed Carry

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Vanderbilt University – One Student’s Opinion on Campus Concealed Carry

John Lott was invited by the Young Americans For Liberty to speak on Campus Concealed Carry. One student, Jesse, wrote an opinion piece entitled,
Please, no guns on campus

The article really comes out in favor of gun control, not allowing campus concealed carry. I responded with a few thoughts, as I believe his article paints a distorted picture of gun owners and guns. And, if you read the other responses, you will see how far off the mark the factual content of his opinion is. Here is the beginning of my response:

Gun Rights vs. Gun Control
I fully respect your opinion, but your portrayal of those who might want to carry concealed on campus sounds more like an irrational fear of guns. You portray most gun owners as unintelligent, who will probably shoot at a mere verbal threat, or is probably the member of a dangerous right wing militia, or who probably has suicidal thoughts and just can’t wait to shoot himself. But instead, we are going to need a bunch of gangsters or the Secret Service to protect us if a ‘psycopath’ is after us, so we shouldn’t consider the possibility of concealed carry, ie, it will not work anyway. The government will protect us. Seriously, you should do a little more reading up on the countless, and I mean countless, examples of folks, normal, everyday folks, not militia types, not suicidal types, who have defended themselves and others with a gun. Go to Jews for the Preservation of Firearms Ownership and ask them about getting the government to protect them. They have a book, and I have it also, Dial 911 and Die. Here is another example from Wikipedia, Suzanna Hupp. She left her gun in her car that day, . . .

. . . read the rest of my comments here

Germantown Votes to Allow Concealed Carry in Public Buildings

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Germantown Votes to Allow Concealed Carry in Public Buildings

Interesting how different communities see things. Milwaukee votes to ban concealed carry, while Germantown votes to allow it.

It appears that in support of concealed carry a study by John Lott and the Stanford Law Review were used.

Wing cited a study by John Lott and then the Stanford Law Review that found that areas with concealed carry may actually be less dangerous than those banning it.

Compare this to the previous post where Milwaukee banned concealed carry.

Read the Germantown news on Concealed Carry here.

John Lott – How the Academic Left Engages in Debate

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John Lott draws attention to how the academic left treats dissent. Lott discusses how James Q. Wilson, a renowned criminologist, has been treated due to his dissent from a study which favored gun control:

“National Academy of Sciences panel that wrote the 2004 report “Firearms and Violence: A Critical Review.” The panel was set up by the Clinton administration and contained many outspoken gun-control proponents (e.g., Steven Levitt, who with John Donohue argued that theoretically, the presence of firearms leads to greater levels of violence, and who claimed without any empirical evidence that higher homicide rates during the late 1980s and early 1990s are “clearly linked to . . . the easy availability of guns”; and Richard Rosenfeld, who argued that those opposed to the Brady Law were “immune to scientific assessment”).

The purpose of the panel was to examine the research on whether various gun-control laws reduce or increase crime. In particular, the debate over right-to-carry laws — which give citizens the ability to carry concealed weapons — was raging in academia at the time; a body of research, much of which I conducted, indicated that these laws reduce crime by giving the innocent a way to deter potential criminals. Nevertheless, the final report refused to take a stand on whether right-to-carry laws reduce crime.”

Read the Full Article at National Review