Letter to the Editor: Critics pick selectively at gun studies

Since they can't argue with basic observations of successes of concealed carry reform legislation in 35 shall-issue states, anti-self-defense extremists have resorted to personal attacks on the academics who first observed these successes.

After several recent discussions about John Lott's credibility on the opinion pages of the Columbus Dispatch, Dr. Lott himself has responded.

Click on the "Read More..." link below.

Saturday, July 26, 2003
Columbus Dispatch

During the past couple months, The Dispatch has published several columns and letters debating my work and the general research on concealed-handgun laws. These pieces have made it appear as though the academic debate is just between me and a few critics. That is not the case.

Academics who have published refereed academic articles showing that right-to-carry laws reduce violent crime include professors Carlisle Moody, Mark A. Cohen, David B. Mustard, John E. Whitley, David E. Olson, Florenz Plassmann, Nicolaus Tideman, Stephen G. Bronars and William A. Bartley.

While some other studies claim the laws produce no change in violent-crime rates, among all the national studies that have been done there is not a single refereed academic publication that concluded these laws produce a significant increase in violent crime.

Several pieces in The Dispatch have pointed to a paper in the Stanford Law Review, but that publication is a student-edited, non-refereed journal.

Furthermore, critics who cited this journal chose to cite only one of its papers, the only one to claim even a temporary, small initial increase in violent crime.

Yet, in the very same issue, another paper appeared by professors Plassmann and Whitley, who examined three additional years’ worth of data and found "annual reductions in murder rates between 1.5 and 2.3 percent for each additional year that a right-to-carry law is in effect. The total benefit from reduced crimes usually ranges between about $2 billion and $3 billion per year."

Paul K. Van Doorn’s July 12 letter "Concealed-carry has problems" made up an entire list of false, adhominem attacks.

For instance, he put forward long-discredited claims that my research was funded by ammunition makers. Chicago Tribune columnist Steve Chapman examined these charges when they first were made in 1996 and wrote, "The (Olin) foundation didn’t choose Lott as a fellow, give him money or approve his topic."

Further, Van Doorn mutated my use of a pseudonym in Internet chatrooms into falsely charging that I wrote letters using the pseudonym. And his other claims on this also were incorrect. He was wrong that I attributed my survey work to other researchers.

And there is nothing "inexplicably revised" regarding my survey estimates. I now state that 95 percent of defensive gun uses involve simple brandishing, rather than the 98 percent reported earlier, because I now have a new survey, conducted almost six years after the first one.

JOHN R . LOTT JR.

Resident scholar
American Enterprise Institute
Washington , D.C.

Click here to read the story in the Columbus Dispatch