The other Lott controversy: Michelle Malkin whacks pro-2nd Amendment author for self-aggrandizing

WorldNetDaily.com ^ | Wednesday, February 5, 2003 | Michelle Malkin

[JohnHuang2]

The other Lott controversy Posted: February 5, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 WorldNetDaily.com For those few of us in the mainstream media who openly support Second Amendment rights, research scholar John Lott has been – or rather, had been – an absolute godsend. Armed with top-notch credentials (including stints at Stanford, Rice, UCLA, Wharton, Cornell, the University of Chicago and Yale), Lott took on the entrenched anti-gun bias of the ivory tower with seemingly meticulous scholarship. His best-selling 1998 book, "More Guns, Less Crime," provided analysis of FBI crime data that showed a groundbreaking correlation between concealed-weapons laws and reduced violent crime rates. I met Lott briefly after a seminar at the University of Washington in Seattle several years ago and was deeply impressed by his intellectual rigor. Lott responded directly and extensively to critics' arguments. He made his data accessible to many other researchers. But as he prepares to release a new book, "Bias Against Guns," next month, Lott must grapple with an emerging controversy – brought to the public eye by the blogosphere – that goes to the heart of his academic integrity. The most disturbing charge, first raised by retired University of California, Santa Barbara professor Otis Dudley Duncan and pursued by Australian computer programmer Tim Lambert, is that Lott fabricated a study claiming that 98 percent of defensive gun uses involved mere brandishing, as opposed to shooting. When Lott cited the statistic peripherally on page three of his book, he attributed it to "national surveys." In the second edition, he changed the citation to "a national survey that I conducted." He has also incorrectly attributed the figure to newspaper polls and Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck. Last fall, Northwestern University law professor James Lindgren volunteered to investigate the claimed existence of Lott's 1997 telephone survey of 2,424 people. "I thought it would be exceedingly simple to establish" that the research had been done, Lindgren wrote in his report. It was not simple. Lott claims to have lost all of his data due to a computer crash. He financed the survey himself and kept no financial records. He has forgotten the names of the students who allegedly helped with the survey and who supposedly dialed thousands of survey respondents long-distance from their own dorm rooms using survey software Lott can't identify or produce. Assuming the survey data was lost in a computer crash, it is still remarkable that Lott could not produce a single, contemporaneous scrap of paper proving the survey's existence, such as the research protocol or survey instrument. After Lindgren's report was published, a Minnesota gun-rights activist named David Gross came forward, claiming he was surveyed in 1997. Some have said that Gross's account proves that the survey was done. I think skepticism is warranted. Lott now admits he used a fake persona, "Mary Rosh," to post voluminous defenses of his work over the Internet. "Rosh" gushed that Lott was "the best professor that I ever had." She/he also penned an effusive review of "More Guns, Less Crime" on Amazon.com: "It was very interesting reading and Lott writes very well." (Lott claims that one of his sons posted the review in "Rosh's" name.) Just last week, "Rosh" complained on a blog comment board: "Critics such as Lambert and Lindgren ought to slink away and hide." By itself, there is nothing wrong with using a pseudonym. But Lott's invention of Mary Rosh to praise his own research and blast other scholars is beyond creepy. And it shows his extensive willingness to deceive to protect and promote his work. Some Second Amendment activists believe there is an anti-gun conspiracy to discredit Lott as "payback" for the fall of Michael Bellesiles, the disgraced former Emory University professor who engaged in rampant research fraud to bolster his anti-gun book, "Arming America." But it wasn't an anti-gun zealot who unmasked Rosh/Lott. It was Internet blogger Julian Sanchez, a staffer at the libertarian Cato Institute, which staunchly defends the Second Amendment. And it was the conservative Washington Times that first reported last week on the survey dispute in the mainstream press. In an interview Monday, Lott stressed that his new defensive gun-use survey (whose results will be published in the new book) will show similar results to the lost survey. But the existence of the new survey does not lay to rest the still lingering doubts about the old survey's existence. The media coverage of the 1997 survey data dispute, Lott told me, is "a bunch to do about nothing." I wish I could agree.

[Wonder Warthog]

"The trust invested in the amphorous "scientific community" is disappearing with each new revelation of misconduct."

Blind trust in ANYTHING is misplaced. As the Bible says "trust, but verify".

[Wonder Warthog]

"These monsters are taking over the universities, as you know. They are turning subjectivity into a religion. It is deliberate. Such people are easy to use and wealth can thus be redirected by democratic means. Note how we seem to be moving in the direction of regulating carbon dioxide, notwithstanding the growing scientific indication that anthropogenic warming is miniscule or that atmospheric carbon dioxide levels are niether unpredented nor destructive. It's mere political force intended to enrich the politically dominant.

All true, but I think the beginnings of the backlash are becoming evident. According to several articles, the current college generation is more conservative than the one before it. These things oscillate on pretty much a "generational" basis. The "green agenda" has had an open run as "mainstream" opinion for just about such a "generational" period. Stories in the media about the "lynx hair incident" and the like, and the brouhaha about Lomborg indicate to me that such a backlash is starting.

And in fact the popularity of Free Republic is another such indicator (compared to, for instance, Salon).

[Carry_Okie]

I was naive at the time. You are the hypocrite.

[Bonaparte]

I agree absolutely. But read my post again. I never condoned the misreported poll. I merely pointed out that it's almost certainly the only flaw in the book. As I said, if there had been others, the anti-RKBA bunch would have found them and screeched. But so far, the only one I hear casting doubt on the rest of Lott's data and methods is you.

[Adder]

I am not casting doubt on the rest of his report at all. I am saying that his "misrepresented poll" should never have happened. In fact, the article indicates that the poll may have never been done which IF TRUE, is much more than a mere "misrepresentation" especially when the man has got to know his book would be scrutinized more closely because of its findings.

[Redbob]

"Lott claims to have lost all of his data due to a computer crash."

This sounds 'way too much like Mikey Bellesiles' "the roof leaked on my yellow notepads that were stored on the floor of my office" excuse!

I pray it's not true - Lott has been the staunchest possible defender of the Second Amendment!

[Cacique]

ping

[TheErnFormerlyKnownAsBig]

I'm paying my car tabs next week and the week after I'm, once again, putting off assembling my reloading setup and spending that bucget (hinges and such from home depot) on your book.

I read Environmental Overkill years ago and gave it to some suburban mommie wannnabe environmentalist. I get the feeling after I get through yours I will be unable to find a suburban mommie who could understand it.

[Bonaparte]

I know. And, once again, Adder -- I'm in complete and unqualified agreement with you about the poll problem.

1. Find your very best adviser.
2. Ask him, "If somebody agrees with me, should I argue with him?"
3. Write down his answer.
4. Tape it to your bathroom mirror.
5. Look at it every day upon rising and every night before sleep.

I agree with you! Is that ok with you? I mean, Adder, if you really want me to, I'll start disagreeing? Shall I?

[lodwick]

Truthful bttt

[Ches]

If Congress and SCOTUS could read the Bill of Rights as it was written there would be no need for this research to justify allowing us to concealed carry. We may never have heard of Lott.

IMHO it is all symptomatic.

[absalom01]

Actually, there have been many other surveys on this point, and they all reached results that contradict Lott.

This seems just a little bit off to me.  There are certainly plenty of surveys out there, but the "98%" figure seems to have originated with Kleck.  At least it's the most widely circulated, and a surprisingly commonly misunderstood figure.  Boiled down, Kleck says that his data showed that in 98% of defensive gun uses, no one is injured.  What he was not so clear in explaining is that he includes "warning shots and missed shots in what is essentially a 'no harm no foul' line of reasoning.  Lott said that in 98% of DGU's, one need only refer to, display, or brandish a gun to deter a crime.

I'd also take issue with your assertion that this discrepancy is what got people looking at this in the first place.  Tim Lambert has been taking a scattergun approach to attacking Lott's work (and coming close to ad-hominem attacks as well) for quite a while now.  He picked up the scent and ran with it, and did so by blind-siding Lott by taking a series of posts from a private mailing list, and posting on his website.  I knew this would have legs as soon as I saw it, and you can bet that this will be mentioned in the (rare) critical notices that Lott's new book will receive in the press, regardless of the facts of the matter.

From my point of view, Lott's response  about the survey and evidence is credible.  Sure, I'd like to see a list of names of the kids who did the phone calling, and even some recovered data of of the hard drive, but in the real world, that's not always possible.  He's been meticulous in the past, generous with his data, and has responded thoughtfully to some remarkably disingenous critics.  In short, he's been through the wringer, and if he had been faking data, he would have been caught long ago.

The web posting thing is a non-issue in many ways, and even lends credibility to his position regarding the survey, in that he fessed up, took his lumps, and has moved on.   Others may differ, but I don't see that this affects his credibilty -- grace under fire, maybe, but that's a different matter altogether.

[Adder]

LOL! No, of course not! I think I am losing something in the translation, apparently, because I agree with you also. I was trying to advance our conversation only. I'm sorry if I seemed confrontational; it was not my intent.:}

[Atlas Sneezed]

This is like learning that Charlton Heston is a secret cross-dresser.

Not pertinent to his principles, conclusions, and achievements, but it makes one squirm all the same.

[Bonaparte]

No problem, Adder. And I see your point. I just wasn't quite sure you saw mine, which is that the questionable poll is almost certainly the only flaw his detractors could find in the entire book. From the moment it was published, a hue and cry went up from the gun grabbers -- get John Lott! But in the 4 years since publication, they've found nothing else in his book to discredit him with. To me, that means it's got to be 99% accurate.

[Sabertooth]

Michelle Malkin Growl!

Post here to the thread if you'd like to be on the Michelle Malkin list.

[Travis McGee]

If you want to read just a fun fictional gun book, try clicking here.

I make no claims as to authenticity; in fact I made up the whole dang thing.

It's called Enemies Foreign And Domestic, and the first half is posted already on the website.

[Travis McGee]

Lott going down in flames ping.

[Joe Brower]

I have been following these reports for some weeks now, and have deliberately not disseminated these happenings in order not to propagate what I see as a carefully orchestrated, purposeful destruction of John Lott.

It should surprise no one that this man, who has been quite instrumental in deconstructing the lies of the gungrabbers, would be targeted for assassination, career-wise, if not actual.

[chatham]

This girl musn't get any sleep, she seems to be writing all the time and it's all wonderful. Thanks