John Lott
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John Richard Lott Jr. (born May 8, 1958) is an American economist, political commentator, and
gun rights The right to keep and bear arms (often referred to as the right to bear arms) is a legal right for people to possess weapons (arms) for the preservation of life, liberty, and property. The purpose of gun rights is for self-defense, as well as ...
advocate. Lott was formerly employed at various academic institutions and at the
American Enterprise Institute The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, known simply as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), is a center-right think tank based in Washington, D.C., that researches government, politics, economics, and social welfare ...
conservative think tank A think tank, or public policy institute, is a research institute that performs research and advocacy concerning topics such as social policy, political strategy, economics, military, technology, and culture. Most think tanks are non-governme ...
. He is the former president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, a nonprofit he founded in 2013. He worked in the
Office of Justice Programs The Office of Justice Programs (OJP) is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that focuses on crime prevention through research and development, assistance to state, local, and tribal criminal justice agencies, including law enforc ...
within the
U.S. Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the U.S. government that oversees the domestic enforcement of federal laws and the administration of justice. It is equi ...
under the Donald Trump administration from October 2020 to January 2021. Lott holds a Ph.D. in
economics Economics () is a behavioral science that studies the Production (economics), production, distribution (economics), distribution, and Consumption (economics), consumption of goods and services. Economics focuses on the behaviour and interac ...
from
UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...
. He has written for both academic and popular publications. He has authored books such as '' More Guns, Less Crime'', '' The Bias Against Guns'', and '' Freedomnomics''. He is best known as a gun rights advocate and has argued against restrictions on owning and carrying guns. ''
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'' and '' The Trace'' have said "no one has had greater influence" in the scientific debate over firearms while ''
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'' referred to Lott as "The Gun Crowd's Guru."


Academic career

John Lott studied economics at
UCLA The University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) is a public land-grant research university in Los Angeles, California, United States. Its academic roots were established in 1881 as a normal school then known as the southern branch of the C ...
, receiving his B.A. in 1980, M.A. in 1982, and Ph.D. in 1984. Lott has held positions in law and economics at several institutions, including the
Yale Law School Yale Law School (YLS) is the law school of Yale University, a Private university, private research university in New Haven, Connecticut. It was established in 1824. The 2020–21 acceptance rate was 4%, the lowest of any law school in the United ...
, the
Hoover Institution The Hoover Institution (officially The Hoover Institution on War, Revolution, and Peace and formerly The Hoover Institute and Library on War, Revolution, and Peace) is an American public policy think tank which promotes personal and economic ...
, UCLA, the
Wharton Business School The Wharton School ( ) is the business school of the University of Pennsylvania, a private Ivy League research university in Philadelphia. Established in 1881 through a donation from Joseph Wharton, a co-founder of Bethlehem Steel, the Wharton ...
,
Texas A&M University Texas A&M University (Texas A&M, A&M, TA&M, or TAMU) is a public university, public, Land-grant university, land-grant, research university in College Station, Texas, United States. It was founded in 1876 and became the flagship institution of ...
, and
Rice University William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University, is a Private university, private research university in Houston, Houston, Texas, United States. Established in 1912, the university spans 300 acres. Rice University comp ...
. Lott was the chief economist at the
United States Sentencing Commission The United States Sentencing Commission is an independent agency of the judicial branch of the U.S. federal government. It is responsible for articulating the U.S. Federal Sentencing Guidelines for the federal courts. The Commission promulgat ...
(1988–1989). He spent five years at the
University of Chicago The University of Chicago (UChicago, Chicago, or UChi) is a Private university, private research university in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Its main campus is in the Hyde Park, Chicago, Hyde Park neighborhood on Chicago's South Side, Chic ...
, as a visiting professor from 1994 to 1995 and as a John M. Olin fellow from 1995 to 1999. Lott was a resident scholar at the
American Enterprise Institute The American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research, known simply as the American Enterprise Institute (AEI), is a center-right think tank based in Washington, D.C., that researches government, politics, economics, and social welfare ...
from 2001 to 2006. He left AEI for SUNY Binghamton. From July 2007 to 2010, Lott was a senior research scientist at the University of Maryland Foundation at the
University of Maryland, College Park The University of Maryland, College Park (University of Maryland, UMD, or simply Maryland) is a public university, public Land-grant university, land-grant research university in College Park, Maryland, United States. Founded in 1856, UMD i ...
and lectured on law and economics. Lott has written op-eds for ''
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...
'', ''
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'', the ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
'', ''
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'', and the ''
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''. Since 2008, he has been a columnist for
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, initially weekly.


Research on guns


Concealed weapons and crime rate

In a 1997 article written with David B. MustardJohn R. Lott Jr. and David B. Mustard, "Crime, Deterrence and Right-To-Carry Concealed Handguns", 26 ''Journal of Legal Studies'' 1 (1997
working paper PDF

journal article PDF
.
and Lott's subsequent books '' More Guns, Less Crime'' and '' The Bias Against Guns'', Lott argued that allowing adults to carry
concealed weapon Concealed may refer to: * ''Concealed'' (album), a 2004 album by Augury * '' The Concealed'', a 2012 album by John Zorn * Concealed (film), a 2017 Australian thriller film See also

* {{disambiguation ...
s significantly reduces crime in America. In 2004, the
National Academy of Sciences The National Academy of Sciences (NAS) is a United States nonprofit, NGO, non-governmental organization. NAS is part of the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine, along with the National Academy of Engineering (NAE) and the ...
(NAS) National Research Council (NRC) conducted a review of current research and data on firearms and violent crime, including Lott's work, and concluded "that with the current evidence it is not possible to determine that there is a causal link between the passage of right-to-carry laws and crime rates." The NAS report wrote of Lott's work, "The initial model specification, when extended to new data, does not show evidence that passage of right-to-carry laws reduces crime. The estimated effects are highly sensitive to seemingly minor changes in the model specification and control variables." The criminologist James Q. Wilson was the only member on the 18-member NAS panel who dissented from this conclusion. For similar reasons as highlighted by the NAS, as well as "multiple serious problems with data and methodology", a 2020 comprehensive review of existing research on concealed-carry by the
RAND Corporation The RAND Corporation, doing business as RAND, is an American nonprofit global policy think tank, research institute, and public sector consulting firm. RAND engages in research and development (R&D) in several fields and industries. Since the ...
discounted Lott's studies. Other reviews said that there were problems with Lott's model. A replication by Dan A. Black and
Daniel Nagin Daniel Steven Nagin (born November 29, 1948) is an American criminologist, statistician, and the Teresa and H. John Heinz III University Professor of Public Policy and Statistics at Carnegie Mellon University's Heinz College. He was elected a Mem ...
found that minor adjustments to Lott and Mustard's model led to the disappearance of the findings.Ted Goertzel, "Myths of Murder and Multiple Regression", ''The Skeptical Inquirer''
Volume 26, No 1, January/February 2002, pp. 19–23. Expanded as:
Ted Goertzel, "Econometric Modeling as Junk Science"
/ref> In the ''
New England Journal of Medicine ''The New England Journal of Medicine'' (''NEJM'') is a weekly medical journal published by the Massachusetts Medical Society. Founded in 1812, the journal is among the most prestigious peer-reviewed medical journals. Its 2023 impact factor was ...
'', David Hemenway argued that Lott failed to account for several key variables, including drug consumption. Ian Ayres and John J. Donohue said that the model used by Lott contained significant coding errors and
systemic bias Systemic bias is the inherent tendency of a process to support particular outcomes. The term generally refers to human systems such as institutions. Systemic bias is related to and overlaps conceptually with institutional bias and structural bi ...
. In the ''American Journal of Public Health'',
Daniel Webster Daniel Webster (January 18, 1782 – October 24, 1852) was an American lawyer and statesman who represented New Hampshire and Massachusetts in the U.S. Congress and served as the 14th and 19th United States Secretary of State, U.S. secretary o ...
et al. also raised concerns about flaws in the study, such as misclassification of laws and endogeneity of predictor variables, which they said rendered the study's conclusions "insupportable". Florida State University criminologist
Gary Kleck Gary Kleck (born March 2, 1951) is a criminologist and the David J. Bordua Professor Emeritus of Criminology at Florida State University. Early life and education Kleck was born in Lombard, Illinois, to William and Joyce Kleck. He attended G ...
considered it unlikely that such a large decrease in violent crime could be explained by a relatively modest increase in
concealed carry Concealed carry, or carrying a concealed weapon (CCW), is the practice of carrying a weapon (usually a sidearm such as a handgun), either in proximity to or on one's person or in public places in a manner that hides or conceals the weapon's pre ...
. A 1998 study by Jens Ludwig that said it "more effectively control dfor unobserved variables that may vary over time" than the Lott and Mustard study concluded that "shall-issue laws have resulted, if anything, in an increase in adult homicide rates." A 2001 study in the ''
Journal of Political Economy The ''Journal of Political Economy'' is a monthly peer-reviewed academic journal published by the University of Chicago Press. Established by James Laurence Laughlin in 1892, it covers both theoretical and empirical economics. In the past, the ...
'' by University of Chicago economist Mark Duggan did robustness checks of Lott and Mustard's study and found that the findings of the Lott and Mustard study were inaccurate. Other academics praised Lott's methodology, including
Florida State University Florida State University (FSU or Florida State) is a Public university, public research university in Tallahassee, Florida, United States. It is a senior member of the State University System of Florida and a preeminent university in the s ...
economist Bruce Benson,
Cardozo School of Law The Benjamin N. Cardozo School of Law is the Law school in the United States, law school of Yeshiva University in New York City. Founded in 1976 and now located on Fifth Avenue near Union Square, Manhattan, Union Square in Lower Manhattan, the sc ...
professor John O. McGinnis,
College of William and Mary The College of William & Mary (abbreviated as W&M) is a public research university in Williamsburg, Virginia, United States. Founded in 1693 under a royal charter issued by King William III and Queen Mary II, it is the second-oldest instit ...
professor Carlisle Moody,
University of Mississippi The University of Mississippi (Epithet, byname Ole Miss) is a Public university, public research university in University, near Oxford, Mississippi, United States, with a University of Mississippi Medical Center, medical center in Jackson, Miss ...
professor William F. Shughart, and SUNY economist Florenz Plassmann and University of Adelaide economist John Whitley.Plassmann and Whitley Stanford Law Review (2003)
Confirming More Guns, Less Crime, by Florenz Plassmann and John Whitley, 2003, p. 1361
Referring to the research done on the topic, ''
The Chronicle of Higher Education ''The Chronicle of Higher Education'' is an American newspaper and website that presents news, information, and jobs for college and university faculty and student affairs professionals, including staff members and administrators. A subscription ...
'' wrote in 2003 that "Mr. Lott's research has convinced his peers of at least one point: No scholars now claim that legalizing concealed weapons causes a major increase in crime." As Lott critics Ian Ayres and John J. Donohue III pointed out, "Lott and Mustard have made an important scholarly contribution in establishing that these laws have not led to the massive bloodbath of death and injury that some of their opponents feared. On the other hand, we find that the statistical evidence that these laws have reduced crime is limited, sporadic, and extraordinarily fragile." A 2008 article in ''
Econ Journal Watch ''Econ Journal Watch'' is a semiannual peer-reviewed electronic journal established in 2004. It is published by the Fraser Institute. According its website, the journal publishes comments on articles appearing in other economics journals, essays, r ...
'' surveyed peer-reviewed empirical academic studies, and found that 10 supported the proposition that right-to-carry reduces crime, 8 supported no significant effect and none supported an increase. The article was rebutted by Ian Ayres and John J. Donohue in the same journal in 2009. In 2013, Lott founded the nonprofit organization Crime Prevention Research Center to study the relationship between gun laws and crime. As of July 2015, he was also the organization's president. The board of directors for the organization includes guitarist
Ted Nugent Theodore Anthony Nugent (; born December 13, 1948) is an American guitarist, singer, songwriter, and political activist. He goes by several nicknames, including Uncle Ted, the Nuge, and Motor City Madman. Nugent initially gained fame as the le ...
, conservative talkshow host Lars Larson and former sheriff David Clarke. In 2020, Lott left the organization to take a position in the Trump administration.


Defensive gun use

Lott argues in both ''More Guns, Less Crime'' and ''The Bias Against Guns'' that defensive gun use (DGU) is underreported, noting that in general, only shootings ending in fatalities are discussed in news stories. In ''More Guns, Less Crime'', Lott writes that " nce in many defensive cases a handgun is simply brandished, and no one is harmed, many defensive uses are never even reported to the police." In May 1998, Lott wrote that "national surveys" suggested that "98 percent of the time that people use guns defensively, they merely have to brandish a weapon to break off an attack." Lott cited similar figures in op-eds in ''
The Wall Street Journal ''The Wall Street Journal'' (''WSJ''), also referred to simply as the ''Journal,'' is an American newspaper based in New York City. The newspaper provides extensive coverage of news, especially business and finance. It operates on a subscriptio ...
'' and the ''
Los Angeles Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' is an American Newspaper#Daily, daily newspaper that began publishing in Los Angeles, California, in 1881. Based in the Greater Los Angeles city of El Segundo, California, El Segundo since 2018, it is the List of new ...
''. In 2002, he said that brandishing a weapon was sufficient to stop an attack 95% of the time. Other researchers criticized his methodology. A study in ''Public Opinion Quarterly'' said that his sample size of 1,015 respondents was too small for the study to be accurate and that the majority of similar studies suggest a value between 70 and 80 percent. According to Lott, Gary Kleck and Marc Gertz's 1994 estimate rises to 92 percent when brandishing and warning shots are added together. Lott said that the lower rates found by others was at least in part due to the different questions that were asked.


Defamation suit

On April 10, 2006, John Lott filed suit for
defamation Defamation is a communication that injures a third party's reputation and causes a legally redressable injury. The precise legal definition of defamation varies from country to country. It is not necessarily restricted to making assertions ...
against Steven Levitt and
HarperCollins Publishers HarperCollins Publishers LLC is a British–American publishing company that is considered to be one of the " Big Five" English-language publishers, along with Penguin Random House, Hachette, Macmillan, and Simon & Schuster. HarperCollins is ...
over the book ''
Freakonomics ''Freakonomics: A Rogue Economist Explores the Hidden Side of Everything'' is the debut non-fiction book by University of Chicago economist Steven Levitt and ''New York Times'' journalist Stephen J. Dubner. Published on April 12, 2005, by Wil ...
'' and against Levitt over a series of emails to John McCall. In the book ''Freakonomics'', Levitt and coauthor Stephen J. Dubner claimed that the results of Lott's research in ''More Guns, Less Crime'' had not been replicated by other academics. In the emails to economist John McCall, who had pointed to a number of papers in different academic publications that had replicated Lott's work, Levitt wrote that the work by several authors supporting Lott in a special 2001 issue of the ''Journal of Law and Economics'' had not been peer-reviewed, Lott had paid the University of Chicago Press to publish the papers, and that papers with results opposite of Lott's had been blocked from publication in that issue. A federal judge found that Levitt's replication claim in ''Freakonomics'' was not defamation but found merit in Lott's complaint over the email claims. The dismissal was affirmed by a three-judge panel of The United States Court of Appeals for the Seventh Circuit on February 11, 2009. A settlement was reached over the claims made by Levitt in the emails to McCall whereby Levitt did not have to issue a formal apology but rather send a letter of clarification to John McCall that the issue of the ''Journal of Law and Economics'' was peer-reviewed, and that Lott had not improperly influenced the editors. The ''Chronicle of Higher Education'' characterized Levitt's letter as offering "a doozy of a concession."


Disputed survey

In the course of a dispute with Otis Dudley Duncan in 1999–2000,Otis Dudley Duncan, "Gun Use Surveys: In Numbers We Trust?"
, '' The Criminologist'', Vol. 25, No. 1, Jan/Feb 2000, pp. 1, 3–7.
"John R. Lott Jr.'s Reply to Otis Dudley Duncan's Recent Article in ''The Criminologist''"
, ''The Criminologist'', Vol. 25, No. 5, Sep/Oct 2000, pp. 1, 6.
Lott claimed to have undertaken a national survey of 2,424 respondents in 1997, the results of which were the source for claims he had made beginning in 1997. However, in 2000 Lott was unable to produce the data or any records showing that the survey had been undertaken. He said the 1997 hard drive crash that had affected several projects with co-authors had destroyed his survey data set, the original tally sheets had been abandoned with other personal property in his move from Chicago to Yale, and he could not recall the names of any of the students who he said had worked on it. Critics questioned whether the survey had ever taken place, but Lott defends the survey's existence and accuracy.,


Mary Rosh persona

In response to the dispute surrounding the missing survey, Lott used a sock puppet by the name of "Mary Rosh" to defend his own works on
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and elsewhere. After investigative work by
libertarian Libertarianism (from ; or from ) is a political philosophy that holds freedom, personal sovereignty, and liberty as primary values. Many libertarians believe that the concept of freedom is in accord with the Non-Aggression Principle, according ...
blogger Julian Sanchez, Lott admitted to using the Mary Rosh persona. Further accusations claimed that Lott praised himself while posing as one of his former students Chris Mooney in Mother Jones:
Double Barreled Double Standards
'' October 13, 2003
and that "Rosh" was used to post a favorable review of ''More Guns, Less Crime'' on
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. Lott has claimed that the review was written by his son and wife. "I probably shouldn't have done it—I know I shouldn't have done it—but it's hard to think of any big advantage I got except to be able to comment fictitiously," Lott told ''
The Washington Post ''The Washington Post'', locally known as ''The'' ''Post'' and, informally, ''WaPo'' or ''WP'', is an American daily newspaper published in Washington, D.C., the national capital. It is the most widely circulated newspaper in the Washington m ...
'' in 2003.


Safe storage gun laws

In a 2001 study, Lott and John E. Whitley reported that safe-storage gun laws not only did not reduce juvenile suicides or accidental gun deaths, but that they also increased rates of violent and property crime. The study was criticized by Webster et al. in the ''
Journal of the American Medical Association ''JAMA'' (''The Journal of the American Medical Association'') is a peer-reviewed medical journal published 48 times a year by the American Medical Association. It publishes original research, reviews, and editorials covering all aspects of ...
'' for using Tobit regression despite the fact that the data used in the study on youth suicides was "highly skewed and heteroskedastic", and because the vast majority of crimes that Lott and Whitley claimed increased due to safe-storage laws occurred outside the home. Webster and Carroll also wrote in ''Guns in American Society: An Encyclopedia of History, Politics, Culture, and the Law'' that the Lott and Whitley study's findings with respect to crime were inconsistent with prior research.


Other research and events

In a study published in 2000, Lott concluded that most of the large recent increases in campaign spending for state and federal offices can be explained by higher government spending. Lott also supports the conclusion that higher quality judges, measured by their output once they are on the court (e.g., number of citations to their opinions or number of published opinions), take longer to get confirmed.


Lost Bush votes in the 2000 presidential election

In 2000, Lott argued, using a regression analysis, that George W. Bush lost at least 10,000 votes in Florida after the media incorrectly called the state for Al Gore while voting was still ongoing in the more conservative parts of the state. Lott's argument is used in the influential social science methodology textbook ''Rethinking Social Inquiry'' (edited by Henry Brady and David Collier) as an example of poor methodology. Contrary to Lott's study, they show that the number of lost Bush votes ranged from 28 to 56.


Abortion and crime

With John Whitley at the University of Adelaide, Lott published a study that argued that liberalization of abortion laws led to higher murder rates. In a review of the literature on the relationship between abortion and crime, Theodore Joyce, an economist at Baruch College and the National Bureau of Economic Research, praised Lott and Whitley for gathering additional data on abortion but criticized the methodology that they used.


Illegal immigration and crime

Lott has non-peer-reviewed research that purports to show that undocumented immigrants are more crime-prone than U.S. citizens. In doing so, Lott lumped together both legal and illegal immigrants in prison into a category for illegal immigrants, leading to an elevated crime rate for illegal immigrants. ''The Washington Post'' fact-checker wrote that this was a "significant flaw in Lott's study that undercuts his conclusion. Lott says the overall thrust of his study still holds, but the issue muddles his research and invites guesswork as to the actual crime rate for the undocumented immigrant population in Arizona." Lott's claims were heavily promoted by the Trump administration to justify its anti-immigration policies, in particular their attempts to end DACA.


Women's suffrage and government growth

According to a study by Lott and Larry Kenny, "women's suffrage coincided with immediate increases in state government expenditures and revenue and more liberal voting patterns for federal representatives, and these effects continued growing over time as more women took advantage of the franchise."


Affirmative action in police departments

Lott published a study arguing that affirmative action in the hiring of police reduced the overall quality of all officers and increased crime. The most adverse effects of these hiring policies have occurred in the most heavily black-populated cities. There is no consistent evidence that crime rates rise when standards for hiring women are changed.


Environmental regulations

Together with John Karpoff and Eric Wehrly at the University of Washington, Lott has worked to show the importance of government regulations through both legal and regulatory penalties and the weaknesses of reputational penalties in reducing
pollution Pollution is the introduction of contaminants into the natural environment that cause harm. Pollution can take the form of any substance (solid, liquid, or gas) or energy (such as radioactivity, heat, sound, or light). Pollutants, the component ...
. Firms violating environmental laws suffer statistically significant losses in the market value of firm equity. The losses are of similar magnitudes to the legal penalties imposed; and in the cross section, the market value loss is related to the size of the legal penalty.


Voter fraud claims

In October 2020, Lott was appointed as a senior adviser for research and statistics at the
Office of Justice Programs The Office of Justice Programs (OJP) is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that focuses on crime prevention through research and development, assistance to state, local, and tribal criminal justice agencies, including law enforc ...
within the
U.S. Department of Justice The United States Department of Justice (DOJ), also known as the Justice Department, is a federal executive department of the U.S. government that oversees the domestic enforcement of federal laws and the administration of justice. It is equi ...
in the Donald Trump administration. Lott resigned from the DoJ on January 16, 2021. Lott has claimed there was voter fraud in the
2020 United States presidential election United States presidential election, Presidential elections were held in the United States on November 3, 2020. The Democratic Party (United States), Democratic ticket of former vice president Joe Biden and California junior senator Kamala H ...
. He argued there was "irregularities" in the
absentee ballots Absentee or The Absentee may refer to: * Absentee (band), a British band * The Absentee, a novel by Maria Edgeworth, published in 1812 in ''Tales of Fashionable Life'' * ''The Absentee'' (1915 film), a 1915 American silent film directed by Christy ...
in Missoula County, and later wrote a paper claiming there was evidence of fraud in the absentee ballots in
Georgia Georgia most commonly refers to: * Georgia (country), a country in the South Caucasus * Georgia (U.S. state), a state in the southeastern United States Georgia may also refer to: People and fictional characters * Georgia (name), a list of pe ...
and
Pennsylvania Pennsylvania, officially the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, is a U.S. state, state spanning the Mid-Atlantic (United States), Mid-Atlantic, Northeastern United States, Northeastern, Appalachian, and Great Lakes region, Great Lakes regions o ...
. A 2021 ''
PNAS ''Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America'' (often abbreviated ''PNAS'' or ''PNAS USA'') is a peer-reviewed multidisciplinary scientific journal. It is the official journal of the National Academy of S ...
'' study by political scientists at Stanford University and the University of Chicago rebutted Lott's paper as being not even remotely convincing, writing that his analysis was "entirely dependent on the completely arbitrary order in which pairs of precincts in other counties are entered in the dataset" and that his conclusions about voter fraud were "utterly baseless."


2021 "graduation address" event

On June 4, 2021, two parents of a child killed in the 2018 shooting at
Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School is a State school, public Secondary school, high school in Parkland, Florida, United States. Established in 1990 as part of the Broward County Public Schools district and named after the writer Marjory Stonem ...
invited Lott and David Keene to deliver what they falsely said was a dress rehearsal for a 2021 graduation address for a fictitious school called "the James Madison Academy". The space for the audience contained 3,044 empty folding chairs. Lott first realized that the event was a staged attempt to call attention to school shootings, and not a genuine commencement address dress rehearsal, when news media asked him to comment on segments of video of the "dress rehearsal" that the organizers posted on the internet. They said that the empty chairs were intended to represent the victims of school shootings who would never graduate from high school. In a local
Las Vegas Las Vegas, colloquially referred to as Vegas, is the most populous city in the U.S. state of Nevada and the county seat of Clark County. The Las Vegas Valley metropolitan area is the largest within the greater Mojave Desert, and second-l ...
news interview, Lott said that he is not opposed to all forms of background checks but simply believes that background checks broadly discriminate against persons of color, primarily black and Hispanic, among potential gun buyers.


Bibliography

* ''Uncertainty and Economic Evolution'' () * ''Are Predatory Commitments Credible?'' () * '' More Guns, Less Crime'' () * '' The Bias Against Guns'' () * ''Straight Shooting'' () * '' Freedomnomics'' () * ''Debacle: Obama's War on Jobs and Growth and What We Can Do Now to Regain Our Future'' () * ''At the Brink: Will Obama Push Us Over the Edge?'' () * ''Dumbing Down the Courts: How Politics Keeps the Smartest Judges Off the Bench'' () * ''The War on Guns,''
Regnery Publishing Regnery Publishing is a politically conservative book publisher based in Washington, D.C. The company was founded by Henry Regnery in 1947. In December 2023, Regnery was acquired from Salem Media Group by Skyhorse Publishing, with Skyhorse ...
2016 ()


See also

*
Gun violence in the United States Gun violence is a term of political, economic and sociological interest referring to the tens of thousands of annual firearms-related deaths and injuries occurring in the United States. In 2016, a U.S. male aged 15–24 was 70 times more likely ...
* Stephen Halbrook *
Gary Kleck Gary Kleck (born March 2, 1951) is a criminologist and the David J. Bordua Professor Emeritus of Criminology at Florida State University. Early life and education Kleck was born in Lombard, Illinois, to William and Joyce Kleck. He attended G ...
* List of American Enterprise Institute scholars and fellows *
Rudolph Rummel Rudolph Joseph Rummel (October 21, 1932 – March 2, 2014) was an American political scientist, a statistician and professor at Indiana University, Yale University, and University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa. He spent his career studying data on collect ...


References


External links


Lott's websites


Crime Prevention Research Center website

John Lott's blog

John Lott's data, available for downloading

Blog For John Lott's 2007 Book, Freedomnomics

Lott's Fox News columns


Lott's research


John Lott's Research Papers at the Social Science Research Network




National Academy of Science *
List of DOJ Publications
{{DEFAULTSORT:Lott, John 1958 births 20th-century American economists 21st-century American economists 21st-century American non-fiction writers Living people American bloggers American gun rights activists American male bloggers American male non-fiction writers American political writers Gun politics in the United States Gun violence researchers Rice University faculty First Trump administration personnel United States Department of Justice officials University of California, Los Angeles alumni John M. Olin Foundation