CPRC in the News: The Blaze, Governing, Townhall, Herald-Standard, Bearing Arms, and More
John R. Lott Jr., president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and former senior adviser for research and statistics in the Office of Justice Programs and the Office of Legal Policy at the Justice Department, told Blaze News about another disheartening factor: People overall seem “less confident” in the possibility of criminal convictions, and indeed citizens are “less likely to report crimes” as a result.
Lott added that it’s more difficult these days to report crimes in some places, noting that often those who tell police about crimes after the fact are instructed to “come down to the station” to fill out police reports, which means they’re less likely to go to the trouble — and thus fewer crimes are reported. . . .
Opponents of the RIFL Act worry it would make guns too expensive for many consumers as companies pass on the costs of compliance.
The bill could price low-income people out of carrying guns for protection, says John R. Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center.
“What you’re going to do is you’re going to primarily disarm the very people who benefit the most from owning guns. You’re not going to stop wealthy people from owning guns,” Lott says. “They might as well just come out and say, ‘We don’t like poor people owning guns.’” . . .
Taking into account their percentage of the population, economist John Lott determined that, between 2018 and 2024, transgenders committed a wildly disproportionate number of the mass public shootings — 6.8 times their share of the population.
But it would be difficult to discern any pattern to these crimes from listening to the American media. As far as they’re concerned, trans shooters might as well have been Muslims. . . .
“Gun-free zones are ineffective and make our schools less safe. Since 1950, 94 percent of mass public shootings have occurred in places where citizens are banned from having guns,” Rep. Thomas Massie said. “Banks, churches, sports stadiums, and many of my colleagues in Congress are protected with firearms. Yet children inside the classroom are too frequently left vulnerable.” . . .
The FBI failed to properly record instances where law-abiding citizens stopped violent shooters, leading to false reports that “good guys with guns” have no effect on stopping violent criminals, according to the Crime Prevention Research Center.
The FBI’s data, which claimed that only 14 of 374 active shooters were stopped by armed citizens between 2014 and 2024, undercounted shootings by a staggering 561 incidents. When those excluded cases are applied to the dataset, it reveals more than 202 instances where law-abiding gun owners stopped an active shooter.
This updated dataset takes the FBI’s original statistic—which claims only 3.7 percent of active shooters were stopped by armed citizens—and raises the real number to 36 percent. If “gun-free zones,” a misguided policy that assumes criminals will obey a metal sign, are excluded from the data, over 52 percent of active shooters are stopped by law-abiding gun owners.
“Of course, law-abiding citizens stopping these attacks are not rare. What is rare is not citizens stopping these attacks—it’s the national news covering it,” said Crime Prevention Research Center President John Lott. . . . .
Most (52%) U.S. counties record zero homicides in a given year (Crime Prevention Research Center, 2017). . . .
John Lott has shown in More Guns, Less Crime that areas with shall-issue concealed carry laws experience reductions in violent crime, undermining the argument that more guns necessarily mean more violence. . . .
How long will it take for perennial anti-gunners to call for more restrictions? Not long, according to John Lott, founder and CEO at the Crime Prevention Research Center. Indeed, as he writes here, they didn’t wait, at all. . . .
It is nice to see John Lott’s work on where mass public murder takes place being referenced by Representative Massie. . . .
But as John Lott and Rep. Thomas Massie note in an op-ed at The Daily Signal, even when the mental health experts are evaluating people, they get it wrong incredibly often. . . . So what do Massie and Lott suggest as the backup plan? Our gun rights.
Tom Knighton, “When Mental Health Experts Get It Wrong,” Bearing Arms, September 17, 2025.
