Meanwhile, CNSNews.com seems to be blissfully unaware of the Lott affair, with this story reporting:
"Surveys Lott conducted in January 1997 indicated that guns are used more than two million times a year in self-defense, either by threatening to use a gun, brandishing it, firing a warning shot or actually shooting a criminal."
Mitch Berg defends Lott against Laura Billing's criticism:
For instance, critics of his have long wondered where he came across a "national survey" cited in his book claiming that "98 percent of the time people use guns defensively, they merely have to brandish a weapon to break off an attack."That's easy. It's a conclusion reached by Gary Kleck in his seminal "Point Blank", the biggest and most thorough survey of firearms use in the United States.
While the 98% figure does appear in "Point Blank", it includes warning shots and misses. Lott specifically denies getting the number from Kleck.