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John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, told FOX Business the judges ruled the counties didn’t even try to justify why they closed gun stores, violating the right of citizens to self-defense.
“The orders by Los Angeles and Ventura counties closed down gun stores and shooting ranges even while they allowed businesses like bike shops to remain open,” Lott told Fox. “Despite rising crime, the counties made it impossible for people to exercise their right to self-defense, to get a gun, or even try to get a concealed handgun permit for protection or even buy ammunition. The judges’ unanimous decision complained that the counties didn’t even try to justify what businesses they decided to close.” . . .
Giving testimony at the hearing was a man Newsweek magazine once called “the gun’s crowd’s guru,” economist, author and Second Amendment researcher John Lott, who came from Montana at the invitation of one of the senators to share his findings on what has happened in the other 21 states that have passed constitutional carry laws.
“One thing to note with these 21 states that have constitutional carry, not one of those states has even had a hearing, let alone any vote to try to rescind the constitutional carry laws that they have,” he told the committee. “And that’s despite the fact that you’ve had changes in political parties from the governor in the state or state legislature going from Democrat to Republican or reverse, and yet there still has not even been a single hearing on this.” . . .
“You know, if you do a news search on any of these states, including Kentucky, what you’ll find is that a few months after these laws get passed, it basically becomes a non-issue,” said Lott. . . .
As gun sales in the United States increased in 2020, reports of violent gun crime dropped dramatically from the year before.
John Lott, a gun rights advocate and president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, argued the inverse correlation between gun sales and gun crime shows many people misunderstand the role of weapons.
“It is pretty shocking to me how we have all this discussion out there with these public health people and a lot of the media talking about gun sales as being responsible for the increased crime, and it’s like they haven’t even looked at the number of crimes committed with guns,” he told the Washington Examiner.
2020 saw a nearly 65% increase in gun sales from 2019, with roughly 13.9 million guns sold in the U.S. in 2019 and 23 million in 2020, according to an analysis by Small Arms Analytics.Lott cited background check data that also showed a significant uptick in gun sales in 2020 in a recent opinion piece for Townhall.
Despite the increase in gun sales, the estimated number of firearm victimizations declined from 481,950 in 2019 to 350,460 in 2020, according to a study by the Justice Department. Notably, murders with a gun increased during that period. Homicides with guns increased from 15,470 in 2019 to 19,486 in 2020, according to data from the Gun Violence Archives.
Lott expressed skepticism about how the Gun Violence Archives tracks gun deaths, arguing the group relied too heavily on media reports.
“They’re focusing on the assaults, and they’re focusing on the increase in murders that occurred, and they’re blaming that for various reasons on the pandemic,” he said.
But he acknowledged gun deaths increased by at least 3% in 2020, referencing data he analyzed from the FBI, saying guns used to commit robberies and aggravated assaults decreased.
Lott also noted the decrease in overall violent gun crime took place as violent crime across the U.S. increased during the pandemic.
“But the point is even though those types of crimes increased, the number of crimes involving guns fell dramatically. And so they can’t go and say that the increase in aggravated assaults and murders were due to the increase in availability of guns for criminals,” he said.
Lott said he believes the U.S. has a drug gang problem, arguing guns are only related to about 8% of total violent crime in the U.S. and that the country should focus on all violent crime, not just gun-involved crime.
“If you look at the distribution of murders in the United States, over half the murders occur within 2% of the counties,” he said. “What you need to do to reduce gun crime is the same thing you need to do to reduce violent crime. You go and arrest more people. You give more money to police. You go and put criminals in jail for a longer period of time. But we’ve been doing the exact opposite.” . . .
Ryan King, “Gun crime decreased as firearm sales increased in 2020,” The Washington Examiner, January 14, 2022. Also the Colorado Springs Gazette, January 14, 2022.
According to John Lott, gun rights advocate and president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, the increase in the number of firearms shouldn’t be seen as the root cause for the spike in violence that occurred during the pandemic.
“It is pretty shocking to me how we have all this discussion out there with these public health people and a lot of the media talking about gun sales as being responsible for the increased crime, and it’s like they haven’t even looked at the number of crimes committed with guns,” Lott told the Washington Examiner. . . .
However, the Gun Violence Archives reported that homicides with guns actually increased from 15,470 in 2019 to 19,486 in 2020. Lott has expressed skepticism about how the Gun Violence Archives tracks gun deaths, and argued that the group has relied too heavily on media reports. . . .
Lott added that the U.S. media should be focused on all violent crime, not just gun-involved crime – which gets the lion’s share of media reporting.
“But the point is even though those types of crimes increased, the number of crimes involving guns fell dramatically. And so they can’t go and say that the increase in aggravated assaults and murders were due to the increase in availability of guns for criminals,” he said. “If you look at the distribution of murders in the United States, over half the murders occur within 2 percent of the counties. What you need to do to reduce gun crime is the same thing you need to do to reduce violent crime. You go and arrest more people. You give more money to police. You go and put criminals in jail for a longer period of time. But we’ve been doing the exact opposite.”
In fact, Americans seem to be coming around to the fact that the police may not be able to protect them, which is why support for gun control has been on sharp decline. According to a Trafalgar Group survey, just 15.6 percent of American voters said that they believed gun laws could address the retail crime surge including “mob-style” crime grabs.
The president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, John Lott, asserted that the ruling shows that those counties didn’t even attempt to justify why they shut down the gun stores, which violated the right of citizens to self-defense, according to Fox Business.
“The orders by Los Angeles and Ventura counties closed down gun stores and shooting ranges even while they allowed businesses like bike shops to remain open,” Lott asserted. “Despite rising crime, the counties made it impossible for people to exercise their right to self-defense, to get a gun, or even try to get a concealed handgun permit for protection or even buy ammunition. The judges’ unanimous decision complained that the counties didn’t even try to justify what businesses they decided to close. . . .
John Lott, a well-known gun rights advocate and economist, argued that the wait time for a permit is too long for someone who wants a gun urgently, such as a victim of stalking, and said “poor minorities” would benefit most from the bill.
Lott and Brewer wrote a recent op-ed in the Omaha World-Herald making many of the same arguments. (Lott co-wrote a very similar op-ed with a Florida state lawmaker published by the Orlando Sentinel last month, which attracted a rebuttal arguing that Lott’s analysis was error-filled. Sen. Adam Morfeld of Lincoln also challenged data that Lott presented at the hearing.) . . .
Sara Gentzler, “Lincoln, Omaha law enforcement testify against ‘constitutional carry’ gun bill,” Omaha World Herald, Jan 20, 2022. Lincoln Journal Star, January 20, 2022.
The reporter seems unaware that we had already put up a post responding to this attack available here.
Shortly after reading the “Fight for Democracy” Point of View in last week’s paper, I read “Is Ensuring Election Integrity Anti-Democratic,” by John R. Lott, Jr.
The contrast between the two articles was like night and day. While “Fight for Democracy” argued for loosening all requirements in our voting process to the point where there would be no possibility of ensuring the integrity of our elections, Mr. Lott made very cogent arguments for requiring photo ID to vote or request an absentee ballot. He pointed out that in 2005 the Carter-Baker Commission proposed a uniform system of requiring a photo ID in order to vote in U.S. elections. The report also noted that widespread absentee voting makes voter fraud more likely.
Mr. Lott also pointed out that a recent Rasmussen survey found that 80% of Americans support a voter ID requirement, although Democratic leaders across the board adamantly oppose voter ID requirements.
Most countries in Europe require a photo ID to vote as well as requiring a photo ID when an absentee ballot is requested, if absentee voting is even allowed.
Did you know 46 of 47 European countries currently require government-issued photo IDs to vote? Canada requires a photo ID to vote. In Mexico, voters must now present a biometric ID (photo and a thumbprint), and the percent of people voting in Mexico rose from 59% to 68% after the reforms, according to John R. Lott Jr., founder and president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, writing for Hillsdale College’s Imprimis.
Instead of being viewed as “voter suppression,” it gave people confidence that their votes mattered.
Jim Ludwig, “HR 1 won’t restore election integrity,” Pittsburgh Tribune Review, January 16, 2022.
Dr. John Lott, Jr., writing in the October issue of Imprimis, the free monthly publication of Hillsdale College, observes that of the 47 countries in Europe today, 46 of them require government-issued photo IDs to vote. Thirty-five don’t allow absentee voting for citizens living in country. Canada also requires a photo ID to vote unless the citizen declares who he is in writing and someone working at the polling station can personally verify his identity. Democracy is not under siege in all these countries.
