David Mustard has made a statement giving his recollections about when Lott told him about the survey:
I do not remember the first time John Lott and I talked about the survey. At the time there was nothing exceptional about the survey for me to associate with it and help me remember when I first learned about it.I believe it likely that John informed me of the completed survey in 1997. I think it highly probable that John told me he had completed the survey at the time of my talk at the Academics for the Second Amendment conference in Washington, DC in November 1998.
I know beyond a reasonable doubt that John and I talked about the completed survey before I testified to the Maryland House of Delegates Judiciary Committee on 20 October 1999 about Maryland House Bill 736 to allow citizens to carry concealed weapons. I also know beyond a reasonable doubt that we had talked about the survey multiple times before then, because in our conversation in Oct. 1999 I clearly remember having knowledge about the survey.
The only date that Mustard is sure of is that he was told before October 1999. This is consistent with the other dates when Lott told people about the survey---the May 13 letter and May 21 phone call to Duncan, the May 25 letter to the Wall Street Journal, and the June 23 email to me. It seems likely that Lott told Mustard about the survey around the same time and this is why Mustard recalls that he had already heard about it in October 1999.
Ari Armstrong comments:
I think the burden of proof lies with Lott to demonstrate he in fact conducted it. Certainly the changes in Lott's text, as well as a host of other strange circumstances described at the link above, call into question the existence of the survey.