CPRC in the News: Washington Times, One America News, Townhall, Journal Gazette (Indianapolis, Indiana), and much more
Experts, though, questioned the value of registration numbers in the first place.
John R. Lott Jr., president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, said it’s rare that guns are left at the scene of crimes unless the shooter was killed or seriously injured — in which case it’s not so important to trace the purchase anyway. When others do leave guns behind they usually aren’t registered to the perpetrator.
Mr. Lott said registration is “only useful for confiscating guns.”
Researchers say that artificial intelligence (AI) chatbots have become much more liberal over time with their answers regarding gun control and crime.
The president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, Dr. John Lott, an economist, maintained that AI can only be unbiased if it is given all the necessary information, not just one side’s opinions.
“It just depends on what type of information is provided to the chatbot,” Lott said. “Anybody who uses Google News search knows that sources such as the New York Times, the Boston Post, are going to come up on top. Information from more conservative type sources are going to be buried way down in it.”
Lott said that his team was tasked with asking 20 AI chatbots 16 questions related to crime and gun control, both in March and again in August. However, the results showed that the chatbots’ answers were much more liberal and leftist in August than they were in March.
“All the chatbots basically gave very liberal answers when it came to the crime questions, and they were even more left-wing than they were in March,” Lott said.
“For example, basically everyone thinks that higher arrest rates or higher conviction rates don’t reduce violent crime,” Lott said. “Among the gun control [questions], there was only one [chatbot] that gave on average what one would regard as kind of conservative answers.” . . .
Conversely, states with higher legal gun ownership rates like Vermont and Maine report some of the lowest violent crime rates. According to the Crime Prevention Research Center, over 90% of mass shootings from 2009 to 2016 occurred in gun-free zones, where citizens were prohibited from carrying firearms to defend themselves. These facts suggest that allowing responsible gun ownership serves as a deterrent to violent crime. . . .
Jason Quandt, “Tool of defense and liberty,” The Journal Gazette, Fort Wayne, IN, October 10, 2024.
According to Lott’s analysis, there’s been a massive drop in arrest rates for reported violent crimes in major cities – he says it’s dropped by 50 percent, while arrest rates for reported property crimes in major cities has dropped by a whopping 65 percent. In 2022, he says, in major cities, only 20 percent of reported violent crimes resulted in arrests, and only 4 percent of reported property crimes resulted in arrests. . . .
Jenny Martin, “If Crime Is Your Top Concern, Vote Trump,” Townhall, October 8, 2024.
“During the 2020 presidential campaign, Harris ran to the left of Biden on gun control,” author and gun expert John Lott wrote in The Federalist this summer. “While both supported an assault weapons ban, Harris wanted to force gun owners to sell to the government any firearms that she deemed undesirable. Harris went further than Biden in vowing to use executive orders if Congress did not pass the ban.” . . .
As U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) reports 11,076 illegal alien encounters out of the Atlanta Field Office during fiscal year 2024, a new report shows illegal aliens may commit murder at rates 50% higher than the U.S. population.
An article by John R. Lott, Jr. posted on RealClearPolitics highlights data on criminal activity among illegal aliens released into the U.S. According to ICE data, more than 435,000 convicted criminals and nearly 227,000 individuals with pending charges were allowed entry as of July 2024. These include thousands of individuals convicted of serious crimes such as homicide, sex offenses, and assault.
“About 7.4 million noncitizens are in the “national docket data,” so 662,776 is 9% of the total, and if one extrapolates the numbers to the homicide rate in this country, it strongly indicates that the government is letting migrants into this country who commit murder at a rate 50% higher than the rest of the U.S. population,” Lott wrote.
“And these numbers clearly underestimate the crime rate of these noncitizens. The noncitizens in the “national docket data” turned themselves in to border agents for processing or were caught,” he continued. “Those who don’t turn themselves in are obviously far more likely to have something to hide from those doing the processing, so-called “gotaways,” who are observed illegally entering the U.S. but not caught or turned back.”
Lott suggests that the root of this problem lies in a broken and overwhelmed immigration system, where the lack of proper background checks has led to the release of individuals with dangerous criminal histories. ICE agents, facing overwhelming caseloads and limited resources, have admitted to struggling to process the sheer number of migrants. The contrast with the Trump administration’s “Remain-in-Mexico” policy, which enforced stricter vetting procedures, has led to accusations that the Biden administration’s lax policies have resulted in more violent criminals being released into the public. . . .
FBI statistics released in September found a 3% decline in violent crime nationally, accordingto CNN, but some experts have noted discrepancies between local crime statistics and those published by the Bureau. The FBI data found robbery decreased by 0.3% and aggravated assault fell by 2.8%, but the Bureau of Justice Statistics’ crime data found rape, robbery, and aggravated assault increased by 4.1% in 2023, according to the Crime Prevention Research Center. . . .
When the subject turned to “America’s gun violence, epidemic” rather than calling out CBS News moderators Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan for using a loaded and pejorative term, Vance repeatedly used it himself. The truth of course, as economist John Lott has demonstrated, is “Murder isn’t a nationwide problem. It’s a problem in a small set of urban areas, and even in those counties, murders are concentrated in small areas inside them,” meaning there is no justification for blanket citizen disarmament “laws.”
While the updated concealed carry permit holders report for 2023 is not yet available from the Crime Prevention Research Center, it should be noted that the estimated number of active carry permits and licenses declined slightly last year from 2022, likely because of the adoption of permitless carry laws. There is really no way to estimate the number of law-abiding citizens carrying defensive sidearms under the “constitutional carry” laws, but the fact that violent crime has declined while such laws expanded to 29 states raises significant questions about the necessity for restrictive gun laws. . . .
Dr. John R. Lott, Jr., who heads the Crime Prevention Research Center, recently debunked these assertions:
The newly released FBI data shows that reported violent crime (murder, rape, robbery, and aggravated assault) fell by 3.5% in 2023, but they have revised the 2022 data to show a 4.5% increase. However, it should be compared to the Bureau of Justice Statistics data, which showed a 4.1% increase in reported serious violent crime in 2023 …
What do these percentage changes mean in terms of the number of crimes?
A net increase of 80,029 more violent crimes, 1,699 more murders, 7,780 more rapes, 33,459 more robberies, and 37,091 more aggravated assaults.
Under the Biden-Harris administration, violent crime in America has INCREASED and they are hiding these trends with false data. . . .
When the subject turned to “America’s gun violence, epidemic” rather than calling out CBS News moderators Norah O’Donnell and Margaret Brennan for using a loaded and pejorative term, Vance repeatedly used it himself. The truth of course, as economist John Lott has demonstrated, is “Murder isn’t a nationwide problem. It’s a problem in a small set of urban areas, and even in those counties, murders are concentrated in small areas inside them,” meaning there is no justification for blanket citizen disarmament “laws.” . . .
John Lott and the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) have been tracking where mass murder has been stopped by armed defenders who are not police.The CPRC found the number from 2014 to 2022 to be under reported by the FBI. The FBI only found 14 cases where an armed defender stopped an active shooting situation. The CPRC found 157.
Perhaps the higher incomes of Democrats can explain much of the difference. As John Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center has noted, 5 percent of U.S. counties “contain 47% of the population and account for 73% of murders. But even within those counties, the murders are very heavily concentrated in small areas.” These are generally low-income areas. Well-educated, single, female, urban Democrats are less likely to live in those neighborhoods. That frees them to be more able to feel concern for the welfare of criminals, even violent ones, whom they may see as victimized by social inequalities.
Republicans, by contrast, tend to gravitate toward suburban and rural areas, where the gun ownership rates are 38 percent and 79 percent higher, respectively, than in the nation’s cities, as Lott notes—which may help account for the much-higher crime rates in the cities, where the risk one takes on in committing a crime is much lower than in these more-Republican places. In short, urbanites rely more on the police to protect them than do suburbanites and those in rural areas. . . .
