Saturday, August 12, 2000

‘More Guns, Less Crime’
John R. Lott talks about his extraordinary research on firearms

John R. Lott, a Yale Law School senior research fellow, conducted one of the
most comprehensive firearms research projects ever undertaken. The
conclusion he reached — that more guns in the hands of private citizens
results in less crime — predictably has sparked heated debate. In the
latest edition of his book, “More Guns Less, Crime; Understanding Crime and
Gun Control Laws,” Lott clearly presents his work and explains the nexus
between concealed-weapon permits and crime rates.

Lott was interviewed by radio talk host Zoh Hieronimus, whose syndicated
program The Zoh Show can be heard weekdays from 12-3 p.m., Eastern time.

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Question: How did you get attracted to the subject of firearms ownership as
it relates to crime?

Answer: I’ve done a lot of research on crime over the years. I’ve published
about 80 academic papers. I’ve taught classes on crime. I’ve worked in the
federal government dealing with crime and law enforcement type issues.

About seven years ago, I was teaching a class on crime at the University of
Pennsylvania. It dawned on me after class that some of the students would be
interested in papers on gun control. And while I had read a fair number of
papers in the area, it forced me to systematically go through the
literature. I guess I had always assumed that there must be a few good
papers out there, but when I went through it, I was shocked to find that I
couldn’t find anything. I thought they were all very poorly done. They were
very small samples.

By far, the largest paper on the issue of guns and crime had looked at 175
cities within just a single year. The next largest group of studies had
looked at 24 counties or 24 cities in just a single year. Most of them would
look at a couple of jurisdictions, or maybe just one. No previous study had
even tried to account for things like arrest rates or conviction rates or
prison sentence lengths in trying to explain changes in crime rate.

So, I decided rather than just going and picking out a few counties — maybe
24 counties is a magical number — I decided that I was going to get the
data for all the counties in the United States for the years that it was
available.

In the second edition of the book, I am examining crime rates as well as
actual gun deaths and suicides for all the counties in the United States
from 1977, when the data was released, to the end of 1996.

[snip]

http://www.worldnetdaily.com/bluesky_exnews/20000812_xex_more_guns_le.shtml