Free Republic

In his new book, “The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies,” John Lott methodically dismantles one popular gun-control myth after another. It has been said that a lie told often enough becomes the truth, and a similar phenomenon is overwhelming the gun debate in America. Oft-repeated untruths have formed common beliefs that often sway the debate about firearms. Gun-control advocates have learned that their exaggerated claims are likely to go unchecked by a largely sympathetic media, allowing them to control the narrative and shape public opinion. What is more, as Mr. Lott explains, billionaire elitists like George...

Hillary Clinton claims that some of Donald Trump’s appeal is “xenophobic, racist, misogynistic.” On Thursday she asked, “If he doesn’t respect all Americans, how can he serve all Americans?” But who actually cares more about blacks, in particular poor blacks? On everything from education to jobs to crime, Trump’s policies offer a lifeline to people who have been losing ground for decades. Hillary’s policies will just exacerbate them. And no amount of speeches will change that. On education, Trump strongly supports school choice. This would give inner-city blacks a way out of horribly performing public schools. Clinton attacks charters and...

It’s a good thing for Hillary Clinton that Michael Bloomberg decided against running for president this year. If America’s self-appointed uber-Nanny had thrown his hat in the ring, he would have made Clinton work overtime to retain her title as the least trusted presidential candidate in American history. As the Washington Post reported on July 25, Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump “now has a large lead on Clinton when it comes to honesty and trustworthiness.” Bloomberg would also trail Trump in terms of honestly presenting the facts if he were judged on the basis of the claims that his anti-gun...

’ve just finished reading one of the best books on gun control to come out in some time and wanted to share some of the experience with you. The timely and superbly written tome by John R. Lott Jr. is titled, “The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies.” You may remember John Lott from our previous coverage here of both gun control and crime in the United States. Some of his previous work included an analysis of the different ways that economists and criminologists view gun ownership, which he revisits in this book. Long before that, John...

John Lott, Jr., a PhD economist who has published scores of peer-reviewed articles in top journals, has written an outstanding and important new book, The War on Guns. It is, I believe, the most important document ever written about guns. The book has many outstanding aspects. One is Lott’s careful review of many studies that the media often cite in order to bolster arguments in favor of additional restrictions on guns. Often, Lott uses his exceptional training in statistics to expose major flaws in these studies. A second outstanding aspect of the book is Lott’s documentation of several cases where...

Was Donald Trump calling for Hillary Clinton's assassination when he spoke on Tuesday in North Carolina? The New York Times sure seems to think so. This was Trump's apparently offensive quote: "Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment. By the way, and if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is. I don't know." Suppose the phrase Second Amendment people had been replaced with any other special-interest group. Would there be any claims that Trump was threatening assassinations? In a Newsweek interview on Monday, Hillary Clinton excoriated...

Economist and gun rights advocate John Lott believes that Americans have been bombarded by well-funded anti-gun studies and stories that perpetuate false statistics to frighten Americans into giving up their guns. He claims that when it comes to the gun control debate, there are two kinds of data: data that's accurate, and data that billionaires, politicians, and media want you to believe is accurate. He'll argue that gun licenses and background checks don’t stop crime and "gun-free" zones actually attract mass shooters. Books: The War on Guns The Bias Against Guns: Why Almost Everything You've Heard About Gun Control Is...

Apple’s next iPhone and iPad operating system will no longer feature an emoji picture of a handgun. In its place will be an emoji of a green, plastic squirt gun. There is nothing particularly threatening about the current handgun picture. You only see the side of the gun; it isn’t pointed at the reader or anyone else. No bullets are even being fired. The whole idea to drop the handgun emoji came about through a lobbying effort started by New Yorkers Against Gun Violence. The bomb, sword, knife, and axe emojis will stay. Apparently, a bomb with a lit fuse...

On Tuesday night, the mother of Trayvon Martin praised Hillary Clinton at the Democratic National Convention in Philadelphia for having “the courage to lead the fight for common-sense gun legislation.” Numerous other speakers also raised the gun control issue at the DNC, too. But Wednesday night was clearly “gun night.” From Senator Chris Murphy (D-Conn.) to former Philadelphia Police Commissioner Charles Ramsey to former Representative Gabby Giffords and her husband, NASA Astronaut Mark Kelly to others, a string of speakers pushed for more gun control. When President Obama addressed the crowd he also pushed the notion of changing background checks...

Democrats have been using their convention speeches this week to make Hillary Clinton look like a can-do politician. On Tuesday, Bill Clinton flatly declared, “She’s a natural leader, she’s a good organizer, and she’s the best darn change-maker I ever met in my entire life.” We heard speech after speech about how Hillary cares about the children, about her innovative ability to solve problems. But there is a reason the speeches lack specific examples. Hillary wasn’t much of a change-maker in the U.S. Senate. Sure, being president is different from being a senator, but both jobs require making deals. Both...

Hillary Clinton likely dodged criminal charges Tuesday for a simple reason: the bar for bringing criminal charges against a politician, particularly a high public official, is so much higher than they are for anyone else. Prosecutions against such high public officials only go forward when there is “definitive” evidence. Evidence that prosecutors know will lead to a certain conviction. Why do I say that? Because earlier in my career I was chief economist at the United States Sentencing Commission. I worked frequently with prosecutors. The reputational loss public officials face from criminal charges can be so great that prosecutors feel...

In Orlando on Thursday, President Obama again called on Congress to do something about these mass public shootings. But the dirty secret about the four different bills that the Senate will vote on Monday is that everyone knows that none of them would have stopped the Orlando massacre. Indeed, none of the bills would have stopped any of the mass public shootings since at least 2000. Everyone wants to do something to stop these attacks, but the one thing that we know does matter -- ending gun-free zones – are being completely ignored in the legislation. Since at least as...

CPRC in Fox News:D.C. must let ex prison guards pack heat, federal court rules Dr. John Lott was quoted by Fox News about the new DC Circuit Court Decision on whether DC has to follow the Law Enforcement Officers Safety Act that allows retired Law Enforcement with at least 10 years experience to carry concealed. Four former prison guards who were barred from carrying concealed guns despite a 2004 federal law that gave off-duty and retired law enforcement officers the right to pack heat won a landmark court victory on Thursday. . . . Smith, who retired as a Corrections...

Dr. John Lott on The Blaze's Dana Show: Expanded Background Checks & Katie Couric's gun control movie Dr. John Lott talked to Dana Loesch about claims made in the Katie Couric movie on background checks and the EPIX channel’s announcement on Tuesday that they are no longer going to be showing her movie. See interview at this link http://crimeresearch.org/2016/06/cprc-on-the-blazes-dana-show-discussing-expanded-background-check-claims-and-katie-courics-gun-control-movie/

In the Bataclan Theatre Massacre, there were 8 off duty police, but none of them had their guns. Interview with Eagles of Death Metal vocalist Jesse Hughes, who discussed the Bataclan attack in Paris that killed 89 of his fans. We had eight police officers in our audience that night. They all had the same conversation with their wives, which was “Should I bring my gun or not?” All of them said no. When we went back and played Paris again they stood in the same places they stood at the original show and they opened their jackets and showed...

Katie Couric’s gun control documentary “Under the Gun” was released May 15 without any portion of a four-hour interview conducted with John Lott, Jr. Lott is president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and a known gun scholar whose seminal work is More Guns, Less Crime. On May 6, Lott tweeted that he had been “interviewed for 4 hours” for Couric’s film and he “bet” that four hours would be reduced to a “select few minutes” of actual screen time. The reduction happened alright. But instead of using those select few minutes, Couric and director Stephanie Soechtig cut Lott’s interview...

Concealed carry permits help police officers, civilians stay in the fight In the past month, criminals have murdered six police officers in the line of duty. The number might have been eight if not for the actions of two concealed handgun permit holders. At this rate, police deaths could be way up this year compared to previous years. By this time last year, only one officer had been murdered. While Republican presidential candidates such as Cruz, Rubio and Trump have spoken out forcefully about police shootings, Democrats have been silent. You've probably heard on the news when at least one...

Guess Who is Pro-Gun? Survey of College Professors Shows Surprising Views on Gun Ownership Academia is generally viewed as a liberal bastion, but one survey finds that despite their broad political leanings, college professors who have studied the impact of guns on society believe ownership of firearms makes the country safer. The academic survey by Gary A. Mauser, a professor at Canada's Simon Fraser University Beedle School of Business, and U.S. economist John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, finds that the attitude of academics actually corresponds with that of the general public. Prior to the 1990s, the...

Report: Criminologists, Economists Find Benefits to Gun Ownership This past December marked three years since the massacre at Sandy Hook. Commemorating the anniversary, President Obama took to Facebook to pen a post that wondered how we as a nation explain congressional inaction on gun control to the victims' families. This type of rhetoric has been a common refrain from the president in the wake of other mass shootings since Newtown and the near-daily shootings in cities like Chicago. But despite attempts by President Obama, congressional Democrats, and the gun control lobby to push for stricter gun laws as the answer...

Economists' and Criminologists' Views on Guns: Crime, Suicides & Right-to-Carry Concealed Handgun Laws Abstract: Economists and Criminologists have very different models of human behavior. A total of 74 out of 130 academics who published peer-reviewed empirical research on gun issues in criminology and economics journals responded to our survey. That was a 57% response rate. Looking at their views on gun control, our survey finds that these two groups have very different views on gun control that vary in systematic ways that we expected. While economists tend to view guns as making people safer, criminologists hold this position less strongly....