In his interview in the Illinois Leader Lott says:
"If you look at the national news reports for ABC, NBC and CBS during 2001, they had about 190,000 words of contemporaneous gun crimes stories on their television morning and evening news reports. The average story is only 250 words or so. During that whole year there was not one single mention of people using their guns defensively, to either protect themselves or someone else."
An alert reader points out that Lott seems to have missed this story:
Take, for example, the question of how often guns are used for self-defense.Gun control advocates say firearms are used 108,000 times a year for self-defense.
Gun control opponents say the figure is as high as 2.5 million times a year.
and this:
"By far the safest course of action is to have a gun," argues John Lott, author of More Guns, Less Crime.He says residents of high-crime areas should have guns as a deterrent, and that those guns should not be locked away but readily available for use as a defense.
And this:
John R. Lott Jr.
Bad things can happen with guns, but guns can also make it easier for people to defend themselves and prevent bad things from happening. Potential victims use guns more than 2 million times a year to stop violent crimes. Crimes are stopped by defensive gun uses about five times as frequently as crimes are committed with guns.
And this:
Both troopers, who were suspended without pay, pleaded innocent, saying the shooting was self-defense. Hogan and Kenna said they fired at the van thinking the driver was trying to run them over.Special Prosecutor James J. Gerrow admitted in court last week part of the state?s theory was wrong and then asked Smithson to dismiss the attempted murder charge against Hogan.