John Lott's computer crash

[On Sep 15 2002 I posted this to firearmsregprof.]

In response to my appeal for any information about this survey Lott claims to have carried out in 1997 I received this email from Geoffrey Huck. Unfortunately, as you can see, he was not able to provide any support for the existence of the survey, so I repeat my appeal: it seems increasingly likely that the survey is fictional---I seek evidence to the contrary.

From: Geoffrey Huck

I was John Lott's editor at the University of Chicago Press for his book, More Guns, Less Crime, published originally in 1998 and then in a second edition in 2000. John has asked me to confirm for the record an incident that occurred in the summer of 1997, just as he was preparing the final version of the manuscript for submission to the Press. At that time, John reported to me that a bookshelf had fallen on his computer, seriously damaging his hard disk containing not only all his files and data for More Guns, but also work on some other projects as well. I recall that much of what was on the disk was lost and could not be recovered. We did have hard copy of most (but I think not all) of the book manuscript, however, and were able to proceed with that.