When John Lott released his book More Guns, Less Crime the title alone caused a sensation. Well it would, really. The statistics-laden text was indecipherable to math-challenged adults. Still, point taken: the parts of America with a high(er) percentage of legal gun owners have a lower crime rate than the parts of America with a low(er) percentage of legal gun owners. Despite numerous [failed] attempts to debunk Lott’s methodology and conclusions, MGLC remains a seminal work in the history of the fight to restore American gun rights. The man’s at it again, releasing his new, innocuously-titled report Concealed Carry Permit Holders Across the United States. Here are the bullet points . . .
– The number of concealed handgun permits is increasing at an ever- increasing rate. Over the past year, 1.7 million additional new permits have been issued – a 15.4% increase in just one single year. This is the largest ever single-year increase in the number of concealed handgun permits.
– 5.2% of the total adult population has a permit.
– Five states now have more than 10% of their adult population with concealed handgun permits.
– In ten states, a permit is no longer required to carry in all or virtually all of the state. This is a major reason why legal carrying handguns is growing so much faster than the number of permits.
– Since 2007, permits for women has increased by 270% and for men by 156%.
– Some evidence suggests that permit holding by minorities is increasing more than twice as fast as for whites.
– Between 2007 and 2014, murder rates have fallen from 5.6 to 4.2 (preliminary estimates) per 100,000. This represents a 25% drop in the murder rate at the same time that the percentage of the adult population with permits soared by 156%. Overall violent crime also fell by 25 percent over that period of time.
– Regression estimates show that even after accounting for the per capita number of police and people admitted to prison and demographics, the adult population with permits is significantly associated with a drop in murder and violent crime rates.
– Concealed handgun permit holders are extremely law-abiding. In Florida and Texas, permit holders are convicted of misdemeanors or felonies at one- sixth the rate that police officers are convicted.
Winning? Sure looks like it.
There’s those damn tricky statistics showing up the anti’s talking points again
I’m shocked… (NOT) LOL.
Dig all the white DGAF states where people don’t bother driving the ~ two hours to get to your County seat to fill out the $200 paperwork (3 days out of 5 during work hours ~ 11:00 AM – Lunch, 1:00 to ~ 3:30 PM) to get your permit to protect yourself from your stupid neighbors who need jobs (your gov’t).
R O C K . ON
Permit holders are extremely law abiding. Very few criminals go to the trouble of obtaining a permit; when they do, they usually lose it fairly quickly. I cite only from the examples that I have seen, but I have seen a couple. A permit, for those criminally inclined, seems almost an invitation to use a gun improperly.
On the other hand, for those who are inclined to be law abiding, a permit seems to serve as an incentive to be more cautious and careful.
” A permit, for those criminally inclined, seems almost an invitation to use a gun improperly.”
All of the non-convicted felons of the 1%er clubs in Waco would disagree. You said yourself in the few examples you have noticed isn’t factual proof.
Being a little criminally inclined was taught in Boyscouts by always being prepared, enshrined in the Constitution by its authors acts of abolishing corrupt rule, and thousands of years ago in a book that said innocent as a dove but wise as a serpent.
“On the other hand, for those who are inclined to be law abiding, a permit seems to serve as an incentive to be more cautious and careful.”
No, the Four rules of gun safety, along with impulse control, coupled with fear of the state is our incentive to defend ourselves. WE law abiding have to beg for a privilege, since WE surrender our freedom of choice by allowing government officials to determine if WE may protect our families and friends.
Sadly, he lost all credibility with false data and fake identity. Time to move on from this dude. He does more harm than good now.
Did he now? Where did you hear that? You hear something from the mothership or you just read something off of Facebook and took it for gospel.
No doubt that Bob has confused John Lott with Michael A. Bellesiles, who wrote “Arming America: The Origins of a National Gun Culture,” in 2000. It won a very prestigious award, but it was entirely fabricated. Clayton Cramer was among the prominent debunkers, but of course, the left jumped to Bellesiles’ defense since his thesis fit their narrative.
It was a lot of fun watching the leftist academics twisting in the wind. I quite enjoyed it. In the end, Bellesiles was fired, the book withdrawn, the prize revoked and a lot of libtards were left with major egg on faces.
It was joy.
John Lott was caught creating fake accounts in order to create positive reviews for his book. I believe he apologized for this. Not a good thing to do for sure, but if his facts pass muster, irrelevant.
Anti’s use this for their ad-hominem attacks.
Well that’s literally SOP when it comes to book reviews. Really. My misses does this sort of thing for a living. Although usually it gets done through agencies that specialize in this.
None the less this accusation doesn’t even touch the actual issue nor the data.
This data is even easier to check than the data used for MGLC. The only accounts I could find for Lott using false data and using a false identity were from the likes of motherjones and dailykos; not even a very left leaning major news media source would publish the shite because its a load of BS.
Logical fallacy is all you have. Fail.
Run along back to Everytown or CSGV or Bullying Mommies or whatever other rock you crawled out from under.
“Sadly, he lost all credibility with false data and fake identity. ”
Cite your source.
(Folks, this is the same Bob that’s a Captain Bringdown that no one invites to parties…)
** Sadly, he didn’t lose all credibility being that his data was never fake, and that no one has ever been able to concisely refute him.
Fixed that for you. You’re welcome.
The ones lacking credibility here, there, or anywhere are gun control advocates, full-stop. Period.
I have to agree with Bob. Lott has barely more credibility than Bellesiles. He posted fake reviews and support for his own work over a period of many years under the name Mary Rosh, and he has been unable to substantiate the survey work which formed the basis of More Guns Less Crime. He is easily dismissed by the media because of the reputation he created by these poorly considered actions.
Two seconds with Google destroys his credibility, and it’s not just the liberals that have criticized him. Plenty of credible science and conservative sites covered Lott when this scandal broke.
http://reason.com/archives/2003/05/01/the-mystery-of-mary-rosh
http://townhall.com/columnists/michellemalkin/2003/02/05/the_other_lott_controversy/page/full
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/835266/posts
http://scienceblogs.com/deltoid/2003/01/21/maryrosh/
As much as I like what Lott says, I’d be a hypocrite (just like the gun grabbers) if I ignored the evidence. We really need some credible researchers, preferably associated with credible institutions, to further this kind of work. Personally I think Lott should just retire.
What does Mary Rosh have to do with the actual data? Even if Lott discredited himself personally through that affair, it in no way impeached his data. In fact, by invoking it in ad hominem fashion, it is you who discredits your argument against Lott.
I don’t believe that Lott’s credibility has been destroyed. I read the articles in the links you provided (one of them has broken links so it was practically useless). Michelle Malkin’s column was particularly interesting but it was the link to Lott’s response that was even more interesting. While Michelle Malkin didn’t respond to Lott’s response (as far as I can tell), the editor at townhall.com at least had the decency to post the link to Lott’s response.
If you read that response you can see how events unfolded surrounding that survey as well as the maryrosh email account. Lott’s explanations seem very reasonable.
Considering that when the 1997 survey was repeated in 2002 (the data of which is available) the same results were found.
My conclusion is that Lott’s credibility is just fine. If anything I have a little less respect for Michelle Malkin.
@SF: I too read Mr. Lott’s book and agree with all that you stated here. It is incredibly well written and boring and it points out the fallacy of gun controls in a very succinct way and he back up his facts with solid data. Heck, the last 1/4 of the book is all references. He also replies to every criticism in a polite, respectful, logical way and goes out of his way to show why and how each criticism is false or at least misleading. I especially like the part where he proves that many of the media outlets that quoted the anti-gun folks negative comments about his book did not bother to check their facts. Quite a few media outlets just seem to pass on whatever the anti-gun crowd gives them and accepts their comments as factual. Quite an expose’ of the Liberal media’s propaganda machine in action. Kudos to Mr. Lott for his book and his painstaking research to prove what the anti-gun folks don’t want anyone to know.
I think “Bob” is the same guy who pops into the site whenever Lott is mentioned, bashes Lott’s data, claims Lott’s data is a lie, tells us to ignore it, provides no proof, and then runs away until the next article. I have read a few of Lott’s books, and they are incredibly boring in a way that only a statistician would love. Each conclusion has well researched data behind it, and any inconsistency in the data is called out. There are few books that I have read that painstakingly touch on every data element behind each conclusion, which Lott does in his books. If “Bob” would provide some proof of his claims, I am willing to look at it, and validate its accuracy.
There is plenty of proof – Lott admitted to inventing Mary Rosh, and the person who originally exposed much of this was one of his colleagues at the Cato Institute, Julian Sanchez. Hardly a liberal.
http://www.juliansanchez.com/2003/04/26/more-trouble-for-lott/
Please tell me you have more than the little blurb you linked to…
Abe: Is the DATA correct or not?
I’m not talking about Lott’s personality, his online persona’s or Lott himself in any way, shape, manner or form.
Do you have DATA that contradicts the DATA that John Lott has presented…either in MGLC or in this recent analysis?
Ad hominem is called a fallacy for a reason….because it is FALSE ARGUMENT.
Have you actually READ any off pseudointellectual drivel that this puissant has posted on his “I love me” site? Guy needs to find an actual job. Perhaps flipping burgers.
Actually, I recently took a very liberally biased criminology class, were the very liberally biased professor admitted John Lott was correct, his evidence was sound, and there has not been a refute. The liberal then went on to say that his work is one of the biggest road blocks to gun control. The liberal was also not pleased but gave me an honest grade for writing many papers on Lott’s work. (An honest liberal? I was quite shocked my self)
If anything, Lott deserves the medal of freedom.
Wow.. not only an honest liberal… but an honest professor… WTF?
He did create a false identity, but that has no bearing on the factual aspects of his data.
IIRC, no one was more surprised than Lott. If he’d originally set out to ‘prove’ anything it was the opposite of what his research ended up revealing.
Maybe you could do with a hot cup of actual data yourself, Bob, .. the whole hoplophobic hysteria thing isn’t getting the mileage it used to.
Yeah Bob, fess up a single credible link to support your drivel and clear that dark rain cloud of Libturd Sickness from over your head.
Man, people STILL trot out that nonsense about Lott being “discredited”.
Here’s the thing: other researcher and reporduced his results using the same data. http://johnrlott.tripod.com/surveyofrtcliterature.pdf
Ah, good old Mother Jones… because communists have never lied or bent truths to further their aims. I mean, I can not think of one single instance where communists have followed the maxim that “the ends justify the means.”
Only problem is there is a current sharp increase in violent crime.
“What you should know about the increase in violent crime in Dallas”
http://crimeblog.dallasnews.com/2015/07/what-you-should-know-about-the-increase-in-violent-crime-in-dallas.html/
“Violent crime rises for second consecutive year”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2013/10/24/violent-crime-rising-in-united-states/3180309/
Now, a part of this rise is the current administration’s policy of punishing law enforcement for doing the job of…
Law Enforcement.
The increases, in most cases, are not all that sharp, and in many cases it’s just media hysteria. Because if it bleeds, it leads.
For example, murders last year in New York City numbered 328 — in a city of 8.5 documented residents and who knows how many undocumented. It was the lowest number of NYC murders in recorded history. It’s hard to get better than that.
From Jan. 1 – March 1, 2015, 54 murders were recorded in the city, up nine from the same period a year before. That’s about a 20% increase, yes, but it’s an increase of nine. Nine! Single digits. And the NYC newspapers are screaming about a crime wave. It’s just absurd.
Some other cities are showing similar small increases, which may prove to be temporary. Some cities, like Baltimurder, have seen bigger increases, probably because cops are not patrolling to the same extent as before the riots. And who can blame them.
“ome cities, like Baltimurder, have seen bigger increases, probably because cops are not patrolling to the same extent as before the riots. And who can blame them.”
Oh, yes. That’s why i ended my comment with:
“Now, a part of this rise is the current administration’s policy of punishing law enforcement for doing the job of…
Law Enforcement.”
The cynic in me believes the Obama administration is quite happy to let violent crime spike.
So they can pass more gun laws.
Ends justifying the means is their way to never let a crisis not be exploited.
I wasn’t disagreeing with you, Geoff, at least when it comes to Baltimore. That city may prove to be a one-off, with rising crime enabled, or even caused, by political interference. The mayor just fired the police commissioner and the DA hung six cops out to dry. But some of the “crime is out of control” narrative is simply media-driven hysteria and not supported by the statistics.
Yep, the US murder rate is so low now it almost has nowhere to go but up, or to stay the about the same. I hope I’m wrong and it lowers even further, but it’s hard for me to picture us having a rate much lower than 4.2.
It could drop quite a bit more. The total black murder rate is very high, about 10 times the non-hispanic white rate.
Then you have a large number of murders committed by illegal immigrants.
Integrate the black urban community with effective policing, pro-family policies, and showing that the rule of law is applied to them, and the black murder rate could drop precipitously. That is about half of the murders in the United States. Aggressive deportation of Mexican criminals here illegally could drop that rate as well.
I was surprised to learn that about 25% of the murders in the U.S. are by illegal immigrants.
http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2013/07/murder_most_swedish.html
When CCW reaches 35-40 percent of the adult population, I predict crime will drop by 70-80 percent. It will be a pivotal point in law enforcement. Criminals will either up gun and become ruthless or realize the cost of being a criminal may be their lives.
The outcome is less court cases, need for large Police departments, smaller prison population. Constitutional Carry will do more to end crime than all crime prevention programs combined.
Concealed carry permitting has been a thing for about 20 years now in some places.
And it seems only about 10 percent of people who are able to do so choose to carry.
Yes, it seems to top out at about 10%. But that is with about 16% of men and 4% of women having permits. I think it could get as high as 15%, if women increase to 8% and men to 22%, if it becomes a political and fashion statement, as it may.
Very hard to top 15%. There are those who simply do not wish to take the trouble and time, energy and expense. Then there are the ineligible ones with criminal records or under 18. That takes out about 25% of the population, right there. 22% of men is about 1/3 of all eligible men. It is a very high figure to reach.
As a counter, there is the constitutional carry movement. If it sweeps the country, there will be far less reason to have a permit, and the only way to determine how many carry will be by surveys, as it should be.
^This. The number of permitted citizens is not a 1-to-1 correlation with the number of people that are actually carrying a gun.
@Mk10108, 35%-40% would be very high for concealed carry IMO. Heck, I’m not sure that 40% of Americans change their drawers every day.
Yes a high number and perhaps wishful thinking. 20% would be a realistic goal and perhaps all that’s needed given a criminal usually commits multiple crimes.
You mean of the 40% that wear them?
Absolutely agree! At some point the risk of being shot will become too great to continue to ignore. When this happens in 1 or a few States criminals will emigrate to Won’t-Issue States. Why move from TX to OK? If you are going to leave TX you really must consider CA or NY a more welcoming destination.
Then, a few more States’ percent-of-adults-carrying will cross a significant threshold and emigration from those states will surge. With 40 States supplying the emigrating criminals and only 10 States welcoming the immigrants, pressure on the latter will rapidly soar.
It remains to be seen hold long the legislatures of those 10 States can hold-out before going Shall-Issue.
There are only six states that are effectively may issue or “no issue” now. They are:
New York, New Jersey, Maryland, California, Hawaii, and Massachusetts.
Massachusetts is “may issue” but has a fairly high level of permits, at 3.6% of the population.
Delaware, and Connecticut are nominally “may issue”, but pretty much “shall issue” in practice.
Permits in California are virtually “shall issue” in most rural counties.
Permits in New York vary with the local, and with lifetime permits, it is quite hard to figure out how many there are. Perversely, state permits are not good in NYC.
New Jersey, Maryland, and Hawaii are the really tough nuts.
But as you see, the primacy of “may issue” and “no issue” has been greatly eroded.
Thank you; I stand happily corrected. I might revise your statement that the last hard-core jurisdictions number 5: NJ; MD; HI; NYC; and DC.
Now, admittedly, NYC is not a State; however, its large population makes it just as important as a State. Likewise, DC is not a State, but as the seat of our Federal government it is important and populous. CA still deserves despicable mention because the populous counties are Won’t-Issue even though the greater-part of CA’s territory is liberal-issue.
The smaller this residual is (10, 9, 8, . . . 3, 2, 1) the more pressure the residual will be under to cave in and go Shall-Issue. So, I think you are right to correct me; we should be saying 3 States and 2 cities are Won’t-Issue.
Furthermore, the fewer States that remain Won’t-Issue the more pressure we can put on Congress to pass National Reciprocity. Why should Congress and its delegates from 47 States be protecting the minority parochial interests of NJ, MD and HI? NY State apparently doesn’t need Congress to explain to its Sheriffs and police chiefs to issue their Up-Staters carry permits. Nor do CA Sheriffs and police chiefs need Congress to issue their constituents carry permits.
Just 3 legislatures are dragging their feet. It’s time for the delegates from 47 States to stand-up for the Constitution’s application in these last 3 States.
That sounds like mighty strong incentive for a lot of people employed by the criminal industrial complex to fight tooth and nail against constitutional carry.
From my studying of social trends and criminology stats, I think the tipping point happens at a much lower rate of adoption of CCW than 30 to 40%.
I think the tipping point starts when 5% of the population in an area is permitted and carrying). Let’s say that half of permit owners don’t carry on any given day, that means I’d expect to see the tipping start when we see 10% of the eligible adult population with permits, or when most permit holders at 5% permitting carry every single day.
Significantly, we’re not yet seeing the kind of armed citizen defenses that dramatically shift the political debate on gun ownership. We’re at a point now where gun-control advocates are having an increasingly hard time arguing against the practical logic of carrying a gun for one’s self-protection. I’m not sure if the critical mass is 30 or 40 percent but, sooner or later the presence of gun-carrying citizens will undoubtedly begin to effect both the incidence and the outcomes of crime against individual citizens.
I wonder what the small-time criminals will do when they find it increasingly dangerous to commit the crimes they depend on for an income? People who want to commit crimes aren’t going to just go away but, faced with an increasingly armed and vigilant populace, they’re preferred manner of getting money will become increasingly lethal. When this happens, criminals will face a difficult tactical dilemma. They can, of course, become better armed but this won’t do much to offset the reality that they’re likely to be easily outgunned by their potential victims who can, of course, always purchase more and better weaponry. My point, I guess, is that the social forces that produce criminality aren’t going to go away just because private citizens arm themselves. That said, it’s interesting to speculate about what our criminals will do when the environments on which they depend become unsustainable due to increased lethality. We could very well witness a rather profound cultural shift of a kind we’ve not experienced before.
That’s probably a little low, but I believe the term you’re looking for is “herd immunity”.
Kurt
Please stop giving Jon Lott attention. The man destroyed his credibility with that Mary Rosh fiasco. Nothing he says can be trusted.
And we are supposed to trust you?
Pass.
That’s a wonderfully useless ad hominem you’ve got there.
Temporarily damaged his credibility, perhaps, but to date no one has been able to concisely refute him. That said, nothing you say can be trusted.
Look I can change my name to look like multiple people too!
Fiasco? Here we are in a forum where few use their real names, commenting on the issues of the day, and you think it is a “fiasco” that Lott did the same thing? Data is data–if the data set is sound, and there have been no claims that his is unsound, then anyone can draw their own statistical conclusions from that data set. Lott has provided the data set to anyone who asked. is methodology, other than some nitpicking, has been found by peer reviewers, to be sound. His credibility is not in issue, Dershowitz’s defamatory comments notwithstanding. (I saw that bit on the piers Morgan show, and note that Dershowitz was rude, condescending, and outright insulting, even though he had not read the book, reviewed Dr.Lott’s bona fides, or for that matter has any experience as a statistician or economist.)
“Lott has provided the data set to anyone who asked.”
Incorrect. One of the criticisms of Lott is that he has not provided the original data set because it was allegedly lost in a computer failure, as well as all of the original survey sheets.
http://www.juliansanchez.com/2003/02/13/red-herrings/
http://reason.com/archives/2003/05/01/the-mystery-of-mary-rosh
Bullsqueeze; that idiocy has been debunked long ago.
Lott is greatly respected in the academic community (even leftists) as a sound researcher.
Stop with the histrionic FUD.
and John Lott has thoroughly addressed his critics many times. For example, here: http://johnrlott.blogspot.com/search?q=original+data
“John Lott first attracted notoriety with a pro-gun-ownership study nobody else could duplicate; his original data, he said, was destroyed by a hard disk crash.”
1) There is a whole list of studies have duplicated my research on gun control (see here for a slightly out of date list). I even had a letter in Krugman’s own New York Times in January pointing this fact out (available here). If Krugman has evidence that these papers that I cite do not duplicate my work, he should provide his evidence.
2) The original data that was used in my regressions was replaced after a hard disk crash and given out to well over a couple hundred academics. David Mustard and I had given out this data to some critics before the crash (Dan Black, Dan Nagin, and Jens Ludwig), but they would not give us back a copy of the data so David and I spent months putting the data back together again. But we did put it back together and we did lend out that data to others, as demonstrated by the papers that have been published by those using the data.
That’s a good point. And I have often wondered WHY most of you guys do not use your real name? I understand why “God” and “Tyler London” and “Bob” is using fake names…he is an idiot. But why are the others?
I do understand the threat of Big Brother Obammy too, but at some point, you have to stand up…
I’m not chastising or ridiculing…just wondering. I didn’t hesitate to use my real name when I tuned up on TTAG; should I have thought better of that?
Ever heard of “Identity Theft?” When coupled with “Data Mining,” it can be quite the inconvenience.
In my case, just call it an innate aversion to “broadcasting” too much personal information. I don’t pretend I am invisible on the ‘Net, but nor do I want to make things too “easy” for too many that would use my info nefariously.
As a professional in I.T. Security, I teach classes in many aspects of the field to “regular users”, and in several of my classes I urge my “students” to have at least 3 main email addresses/identities and a half dozen minor ones, each one to be used for different purposes. Yep, identity theft can happen by using your real name on various forums and websites, as can all kinds of other nasty things.
If true, I’m disappointed to hear that John Lott used one of those to kick up the reviews on his books, but I can’t fault him for just creating the accounts.
We don’t trust it. We don’t have to. We’ve watched it survive every attack executed against it and it has thwarted attempts at debunking.
I don’t have to trust my house to stand if I’m currently looking at it in an upright condition.
I have mixed feelings on Lott. No doubt, criticism for his ‘Mary Rosh’ affair hurt his credibility. I’m also not so sure that concealed carry affects crime that much. Crime is cyclical and will eventually go up again.
What has been proven is that concealed carry or gun ownership in general have very little to do with crime rates.
Um, Bob, Tyler London, William Ashbless, or whatever your name is. The time stamps seem to suggest you are the same person. Why use different names for each of your posts? If you are looking for honest debate, why hide behind aliases?
What has actually been proven is that gun control doesn’t work. I am of the mind that, while certainly a contributing factor, ownership and carry a of guns is not the “silver bullet” that some are looking for. The vast majority of crime is directly related to, and caused by, our failed “War on (Some) Drugs” — particularly the enforcement of drug laws and the nasty institutions that were spawned by it. Hell, most crime victims are long-time criminals themselves, if not also gang members.
Still, this is more a civil rights issue than a criminological one, though it’s hard to see how an unarmed victim is somehow better off than an armed one (SURPRISE: they’re not). As a civil rights issue, gun control advocates have no counter arguments, and they never did. As a criminological issue, gun control advocates still have no counter arguments, and they never did.
A note on Lott: his credibility may have been temporarily tarnished, but his thesis still remains wholly intact. No one has been able to concisely refute him.
This is actually a very good point. Looks like about 90% of homicides are Black-on-Black where both the perpetrator and “victim” are criminals to various degrees. Then, only about 10% of homicides might be related to criminals attacking law-abiding victims.
Carry by the law-abiding can put a dent in – only the 10%. Can’t do much – if anything – to reduce the 90%. (These percentages are very rough; but, if the real data is 80%-20% the conclusion still stands.)
But homicide rates are probably the wrong data to watch. We ought to be looking at the much higher figures for: aggravated assault; armed robbery; and, rape. The reason homicide figures are as low as they are is because most injured victims manage to get EMT and ER care in time to save their lives. I.e., the victims don’t show up in the homicide data because they don’t die.
We need to pay closer attention to the violent crime data other-than-homicide. Many of those who either perpetrate or fall victim to Black-on-Black homicide are also perpetrators of other violent crime against law-abiding victims.
You’re so fake dude
Are you the real William Ashbless or the fictional one?
Shoot them both, it’s the only way to be sure.
There. Now I can decide who’s who at my leisure.
William,
Do yourself a favor. Go get your PhD in a numbers field, and then do a bunch of work. Then publish the work and have it proven time, after time, after time….
Pretty simple!
Then come back in 20 years and we will listen to you. Or not.
http://news.yahoo.com/guns-dont-deter-crime-study-finds-180710261.html
Anyone happen to take a look at this article Yahoo posted a little over a week ago? Obviously by the title they are claiming a states with higher gun ownership have higher rates of gun deaths. I didn’t snoop around to try and find the study itself so I’m curious if anyone else happened to read this or investigate its’ validity. Seems odd to me that one study claims a direct correlation with a state’s increase in gun ownership and firearm homicide rate when several other studies show the contrary.
I don’t have the statistical chops to do any analysis, but I do note that the “study” is based on answers to surveys conducted in 2001, 2002 and 2004.
I sh1t you not.
That so-called “study”, as many gun control “studies” do, once again deliberately conflates correlation with causation. On this alone, that so-called “study” fails just on the surface. Secondly, it focuses solely on so-called “gun crimes”; itself a misnomer because guns do not encourage nor facilitate crime, instead of looking at crime as a whole. One of the “study’s” authors, a “Dr.” Hemenway, had his own so-called “study” withdrawn because his methodology was almost laughably horrible. There are articles aplenty here on TTAG that breakdown and debunk it. It was later republished, only with its central thesis hanging on but by a thread.
“Gun deaths” is the new “household income.”
The study doesn’t look at “crime” but at “gun violence” so that it can include the numbers for suicides as well, numbers that are more (inversely) related to the economic cycle than gun laws.
They are including accidents and suicides. If we live in a State where the only vehicle anyone owned is Chevrolet, I am damn sure that most of the car accidents in that State would be in a Chevrolet. And most of the suicides by vehicle, and vehicular homicides, would be caused by a Chevrolet. I can also assure you that in the State with the highest sales of sleeping pills, suicide by sleeping pill will be much higher than in the State with the lowest sales in sleeping pills. I can also assure you that there are many times more boating accidents in Florida, than in Kansas.
Why are we even talking about this? These people obviously either never attended class in college, or ditched statistics to visit the campus weed salesman. Good grief.
John Lott’s data is sound. I don’t care of the man claimed to walk on the moon in Apollo 13, his statistics speak for themselves. The “anti’s” statistics…well, they speak for no one.
Yep…even in Illinois.
It’s John Lott, not Jon Lott.
So I’m not sure about all these statistics, and it doesn’t help our position that much anyway. Violent crime is determined by the moral culture of a people. Many young poor blacks have very little culture of any kind, except violent gang culture. This is the main reason “gun crime” is so high in the U.S. (as compared to their beloved UK). They ignore the fact that in my life (and in the vast majority of American’s lives), the chances of me being shot to death are probably the same as if I lived in the UK. The antis’ argument does not take into account human dignity (they are great haters of human rights) but focuses completely on the utilitarian factors, specifically that guns make it easier to kill people. They repeat that fact and have nothing else. They ignore the fact that criminals still get guns in countries with very strict gun laws; places like Brazil and Russia and Mexico. The U.S. is significantly safer than those places. They also ignore the fact that people can use guns in self defense. And of course, they arbitrarily trust people who work for the government to always and forever use guns for good. Well, the 20th century should put that myth to rest, but anti gunners are ignorant of history, or, think “this time it’s different”. Yeah, ok.
” it doesn’t help our position that much anyway.”
I disagree.
It helps our position by an INCREDIBLE amount.
Every time you hear one of those astonishingly idiotic claims of “blood in the streets” or some dumb-a$$ college profession argue against Campus Carry on the grounds “my students might shoot me because of a bad grade,” (admittedly a variant of ‘blood in the streets’), you can say, “Weellllll, here’s some interesting DATA on that subject. Seems things DO NOT get worse.”
Next time some anti has a sobbing fit over an OC-er in Kroger, one can reply, “It’s not the law-abiding citizen with a gun you have to worry about. Here’s some data that show increase in number of armed citizens without a correlative increase in crime.”
Sure, they won’t get it. But, it’s still fun throwing logic and data at them. Makes ’em stutter.
So the TX graph means what? Maybe the white people were already well armed and the balance of race is playing catch-up. Should level out more if true?
I notice that all those racists buying guns after Obama’s election seem to be equally distributed among the demographic groups…
How could they leave off Wyoming. We are allowed to carry concealed without a permit as well and have been for a couple years.
I think they meant to color Wyoming green, but did West Virginia instead.
West Virginia should be blue, and Wyoming Green.
They got it right in the table.
Love the facts, it makes the anti’s squirm when all they have on their side to support them is fake stats pushed by the likes of obama and bloomberg, oh and don’t forget their overuse of crocodile tears and emotional pleas.
Why no Latino in the Texas minority graph?
Would you kindly elaborate on how you reached this conclusion? I.e., that 5% is the tipping point; or, 1/2 of 10% of permitted carriers?
“what our criminals will do when the environments on which they depend become unsustainable due to increased lethality.”
I think they have to emigrate to States with Won’t-Issue policies or relatively low carry practice. Alternatively, they stay where they are and switch to property crimes (cold burglaries, auto theft and the like).
The MSM has seemed to be able to suppress news about carriers aborting crimes; at least to-date. However, as the frequency of carriers aborting crimes increases it will be increasingly difficult to maintain radio-silence. Too many notices in local media and on the internet. Too many acquaintances aware of the incidents and wondering why they didn’t hear about the incidents on the news.
Eventually, the population will realize that carriers aborting crimes “is a thing”; and, that recognition is apt to trigger a tiring point in public opinion.
Would be great if, in his free time, Lott would take a look at the fraud which is man caused “global warming/climate change”
The difficulty with trying to become optimistic about a significant drop in homicide rates is changing the demographics. We are not going to change culture in the Black or illegal-immigrant communities overnight.
Criminals might kill-each-other off thus bringing down the statistics dramatically. If most of the homicide is Black-on-Black, I don’t see law-abiding carry reducing the propensity of Black criminals killing their rivals.
Law-enforcement might alter its incarceration policies by reducing the non-violent incarceration rates to make room for violent convicts. Or, legislatures might build more prisons. However, any such change along these lines will buck the complaints about the soaring rate of Black incarceration. Our society seems much more content to keep its Black male youth in prison for 1 – 2 years vs. keeping its most violent criminals in prison for 10 – 20 years. We like the revolving door because it has a minimal impact on social life (and the crime always happens to “someone else”).
It’s going to be hard to reduce the illegal-immigrant population. However, incarcerating VIOLENT illegal-immigrants should not constitute a political problem. There ought to be no constituency for violent illegal-immigrants. These prey upon peaceable illegal-immigrants, native Latinos and Progressives. This demographic is much different from the Black violent criminal demographic who DO have a political support constituency.
The Black violent criminal always has a mother and aunt and brother who claims that the criminal was just turning-his-life-around when arrested for armed-robbery. After all, no one was killed in his armed robbery so it’s all OK, isn’t it? No one speaks out for the violent illegal immigrant who kills someone.
Our tactic needs to be make it clear that law-abiding carriers are NOT causing ANY statistically-significant fraction of the homicides. The homicides are perpetrated by career criminals, native Blacks and illegal-immigrant Latinos. If the homicide rate is to be brought-down it is these latter two groups that must be focused on.
Furthermore, it is futile to hope to stem the leakage of guns from LEGAL-owners to ILLEGAL-holders. Burglary is unstoppable. Straw-buying can be stopped ONLY IF America is prepared to chase-down and incarcerate single mothers for a long-enough sentence to dissuade this vulnerable buying demographic. NOT going to happen. Even IF the leakage were stopped it would be replaced by clandestine manufacturing and smuggling.
Gun-control at point-of-sale is futile. Gun-control aimed at felons-in-posession has some promise of success. Gun-controllers ought to focus on what will WORK, not on what is futile.
female blacks are the fastest growing group of CCW permit holders. And they ain’t buying those guns to protect themselves from whites, but from black men. Good for them. The police can’t really protect them from thug culture, so they are gonna have to do it themselves.
That would be interesting if verifiable. Do you have a citation or other basis for the claim?
The first sentence is based on the report discussed in the article: http://crimepreventionresearchcenter.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/07/2015-Report-from-the-Crime-Prevention-Research-Center-Final.pdf
the reason why is based on the fact that white-on-black crime is extremely rare today (this ain’t the 1950s), but black on black crime is extremely prevalent. i can find stats on this but DOJ’s statistics are pretty well known.
Thanks; very impressive.
When granny and young mothers in the inner-city come “out” for gun-rights and carry then the race to support and defend the 2A will come to its logical conclusion.
When you read Lott’s report, you will find that Wash DC has issues only 31 – only THIRTY ONE – CCW permits.
And Maryland only 14,454 only 1% of what Florida has issued.
Yet crime in Baltimore and SE DC/PG County Maryland is off the charts.
Clearly MD and DC’s laws DON’T WORK, and they are clearly in place solely to thwart the 2nd amendment.
Hmmm. I think you are onto something here.
We don’t know whether people arm-up because they face a high rate of crime; or, whether there is some causality that a high density of arms-keeping/bearing promotes crime.
We have many precincts (whether they be entire States, DC, or particular municipalities) with strict gun-control laws and few legal arms. We have many precincts with liberal gun-control laws and many arms.
Now, interestingly, in jurisdictions with permissive gun-control laws there a precincts with no guns to speak of.
– If crime is high it’s not caused by guns that don’t happen to be here. Must be something else.
– Low crime would be consistent that guns cause crime.No-guns => no crime
Other precincts in permissive gun-control jurisdictions have lots of legal guns.
– if crime is high the legal guns might be causing the crime – Guns => Crime
– or, the crime encourages people to have legal guns – Crime => guns
In jurisdictions with restrictive gun-control laws all the precincts have no guns to speak of.
– If crime is high it’s not caused by LEGAL guns that don’t happen to be here. Must be something else.
– Perhaps illegal guns are plentiful and ILLEGAL guns => crime.
– Low crime would be consistent that guns cause crime.No-guns => no crime
We can’t draw any reliable conclusion from a high-crime jurisdiction with permissive gun-control laws allowing for lots of legal guns. It might very well be that the high crime is prompting people to acquire legal guns. Or, it might be a coincidence. A lawless people live in the same precincts as people who are peaceable users of guns.
We can draw a conclusion from high-crime jurisdictions with permissive gun-control laws that don’t happen to have many legal guns. The absence of guns doesn’t ensure low-crime. Something else might still cause the high rates of crime.
We can also draw a conclusion from high-crime jurisdictions with strict gun-control and few legal guns. High crime is perfectly compatible with few legal guns. Perhaps there are lots of ILLEGAL guns in such jurisdictions. That would simply mean that strict gun-control is not effective in eliminating illegal guns. This – if true – would be highly informative.
In the US there are so many jurisdictions that have permissive gun-control laws that guns can easily be trafficked from such jurisdictions into highly restrictive jurisdictions. Are there any means available to a country to quell such trafficking?
We can survey all the countries of the world examining their gun-control laws and enforcement programs. Most countries in the Americas have highly restrictive gun-control laws. Nevertheless, most such countries have very high rates of violence; notably: Mexico; Belize; Guatemala; Nicaragua; Venezuela; Brazil. Despite these nation-wide strict gun-control laws they have managed to acquire plenty of illegal guns.
Similar observations can be made throughout the countries of Africa. Apparently, restrictive gun-control laws are ineffective where the populations have strong cultural tendencies toward violence. They have violence and illegal guns a-plenty despite restrictive gun control laws.
Some countries, such as Japan, North and South Korea, China, Singapore have strict gun-control laws and low levels of violence. Is the low level of violence attributable to the paucity of guns? Or, is it more likely attributable to cultures which are law-abiding? Or, attributable to harsh punishments for anti-social behavior? Could the United States become more like Japan or Singapore? Would we want to become more like these Asian countries?
Where there is strict gun-control, low levels of gun-violence, and high levels of non-gun violence, what can we make of such regimes? If there are few guns – legal or illegal – we can naturally expect few gun crimes. But what should we make of the high levels of non-gun violence in some of these countries. Is this non-gun violence caused by a paucity of guns? I.e. are criminals who don’t have guns more likely to commit non-gun crimes then if they had guns? That seems to be an implausible relationship. However, it might be that criminals who lack guns are more likely to take the risk of committing a non-gun crime because they don’t have to fear being “out-gunned” by a victim with a gun.
Now, we may be onto something. The high rates of non-gun crime in the UK and Australia might well be attributable to the emboldening of criminals who have nothing to fear from unarmed victims? Does this same rational also explain how US inner-cities – notwithstanding strict gun-control in many of these jurisdictions – are emboldened by the low density of legal-gun-bearing victims?
https://nfa.ca/sites/default/files/Kates-Mauser.pptx
http://www.scribd.com/mobile/doc/256956/Harvard-Would-Banning-Firearms-Reduce-Murders-and-Suicide
Yup; thanks. I think I’ve seen each of these reports before; nevertheless, the deserve a second read. Pretty much conforms my hypothesis.
I’ve been playing around with the idea of Risk / Reward as a social and even genetic factor in success. When the risk is low and the reward high, most people will take the risk. When the risk is high and the reward’s low, most people avoid the risk. Where it gets interesting is when the Risk/Reward is close or even. The problem is that the assessment of the risk and reward is subjective.. Donald Trump can take a huge risk that would financially destroy a city for a huge reward and shrug his shoulders if it fails. He’s not on the street when he has a risk go sideways. The average person has a much more modest approach, carefully weighing the chances but where the risk / reward begins to skew the other way is at the lower end of society. Take inner city youth for example: They live under constant risk, from drugs, gangs, random violence, lack of opportunities.. so an additional risk of robbery or selling drugs doesn’t outweigh the potential for modest to little rewards. Doing nothing has risk, so doing something just adds rewards.
Good points. However, threat of imminent lead poisoning is usually enought to change the cost-benefit analysis of a thug, disincentivizing them at least in that particular case.
exactly.
All these percentages . . .
One sticks in my mind from a college sociology course: we were told that if 15% of a population is plainly doing X, then the impression will be that a majority is doing X. If this is so, then if 15% of the population in an area open carried, the perception by the public would be that a majority of the people were carrying. And if the common belief is that a majority are carrying, then it would be considered normal, ordinary behavior.
It’s such a small piece of the population, but if that professor was correct, then 15% openly carrying is the threshold we need to cross.
“Some evidence suggests that permit holding by minorities is increasing more than twice as fast as for whites”
Delta comparisons for small datasets are misleading. Create a new club. Sign up three other people. You’ve just quadrupled your membership in one day. That makes you the fastest growing organization in America. But you’re still inconsequential, and as time goes on, the numbers will reflect that. In the same manner, simply because a group is a minority (meaning there are fewer of them than others), a small increase in real numbers appears to be more significant than it really is.
Absolutely true. Doubling the number from 1 to 2 is a 100% increase. From 2 to 3 is a 50% increase.
Nevertheless, I’m cautiously optimistic in observing growth among females and minorities; especially black females. These sub-classes of the population have historically eschewed guns. Now, suddenly, their numbers are growing. Has something changed? Or, is this merely a temporary fluke?
Time will tell. The percentage rate-of-growth for these sub-classes (beginning with very small numbers) must necessarily taper-off. Nevertheless, the percentage growth may taper-off slowly and remain high. According to the rule-of-70, a 10% rate-of-growth doubles a population in 7 years. A 7% rate-of-growth doubles a population in 10 years.
Once these extraordinary rates of growth bring 5% of women into the pool of gun-owners they can become 10% in 7 ears at a moderate 10% growth rate. That can become 20% in another 7 years; and 40% in another 7 years. I.e., in just a couple of decades, we can imagine 40% of adult females armed! At such a juncture the gun-control war will be over.
We probably won’t see, e.g., Asian women maintaining high growth rates. We might not see white women maintaining high growth rates. Even so, its not out-of-the-question to see Black women maintaining high growth rates. Think of the demographic implications. This small (7% of the population) demographic is surrounded by prohibited-persons. The pool of black males who retain their 2A rights might dwindle to 1/2 that segment of the population. Who will protect the Black women and their children? Armor-up Sister!
Eventually, the Black population MIGHT become the strongest advocates for gun-rights. Every Black criminal will have a mother, sister, nephews and nieces he would prefer being defended. Every Black law-abiding man will likewise want to protect himself and those near and dear to him. Every Black law-abiding woman will want to protect herself and her children. Then what? Will Democrats remain free to promote gun-control? This tiny shift of the right demographic COULD render the 2A the 3’rd rail of Blue-State politics.
That’s the potential; it remains to be seen whether such an outcome will be realized.
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