New U.S. Commission on Civil Rights Report Extensively Cites Dr. John Lott, “Federal Efforts in Examining Racial and Ethnic Disparities Among Victims of Violent Crime”
The complete copy of the report is available here. Here are some of the mentions of Dr. Lott research and testimony that were spread out throughout the report. The video of Lott’s testimony before the commission is available here. Comments about the reaction of progressives by Commissioner Peter Kirsanow regarding Lott’s testimony is available here: “Lott has testified before the commission several times during my tenure. Of the hundreds of witnesses who’ve appeared before the commission during that time, no one has been treated with greater hostility by progressives than he. I’d long suspected that such treatment was due to his usually bringing hard data to the table — which are more difficult for progressives to refute/spin than mere opinion.”
As John Lott, President of the Crime Prevention Research Center, points out: “People commit crimes primarily against people who are like themselves, both in terms of race and social/economic status.” . . .
John Lott, President of the Crime Prevention Research Center, believes that guns are necessary for safety. He testified that one way to reduce crime is “by letting victims be able to go and protect themselves with guns.” . . .
Panelist John Lott also stated that the “assault weapons ban” can only be said to have reduced mass shootings if one uses an idiosyncratic definition of “mass shootings.”1261 But more importantly, “assault weapons” are not the weapons usually used in the crimes under consideration in this report. In fact, there were more violent crimes committed using asphyxiation (17,324) during 2012-2022 than there were violent crimes committed using rifles. . . .
John Lott testified:
Banning guns might reduce firearm suicides and cases of self-defense, but it won’t reduce firearm murders. Indeed, a ban on guns, even a handgun ban such as the ones we’ve seen in Washington and Chicago, inevitably makes things much worse. After every gun ban, murder rates have gone up.
One would think that just once, out of simple randomness, murder rates would have gone down or remained the same after a ban. But whenever crime data are available from both before and after a ban, we can see that murder rates have gone up (often by huge amounts).
Gun control advocates will say that Washington and Chicago weren’t fair tests. They will point out that criminals could still get guns in Virginia or Maryland, or in Illinois or Indiana. While that might explain why murder rates didn’t fall as promised, it doesn’t explain why murder and violent crime rates went up.
Even island nations who had no neighbors to blame have fared no better. After the U.K. banned handguns in January 1997, its homicide rate rose by 50% over the following eight years. The rate returned to earlier levels only after a 14% increase in the number of police.
Even more dramatic post-ban surges occurred in Jamaica and Ireland, with six or sevenfold increases in homicide rates. . . .
As panelist John Lott testified, there is nothing special about AR-15s. “AR-15s are small-caliber, semi-automatic hunting rifles. They just look different, but they function identically to any semi-automatic gun. About 85 percent of the guns in the United States are semi-automatic.”
Assault weapon bans have not reduced the mass public shootings, the ban that we had from ’94 to 2004. There is one academic, Louis Klarevas has his own unique definition of mass shootings that he collects there, and that’s the one President Biden and others refer to constantly.
But the problem that you have with that is that if you look at the percent of mass shootings, mass public shootings that involve assault weapons, even using his unique measure, it actually went up during that period of time. The only way that it could drive a decline was if the share fell over the period. . . .
John Lott Statement at 55. You can agree or disagree with Professor Lott’s research. Unfortunately, we were unable to have a useful discussion on the topic, as my colleagues resorted to ad hominem attacks rather than engaging his arguments on the merits in a respectful fashion. . . .
