tlambert | April 7, 2003John Quiggin gives some more examples of folks behaving like the Heartland Institute and the Independence Institute and covering up their mistakes rather than acknowledging them.
tlambert | April 7, 2003After I concluded yesterday that Kopel had probably added the attribution to Kleck in one Lott op-ed, Lott has weighed in, contradicting Kopel's story. In this posting Lott writes:"My vague recollection of what happened is that David Kopel (Research Director at the Independence Institute) called me up asking for more information on who had done self-defense surveys and I mentioned that among them was Gary Kleck."
This is contradicted by Kopel's account of what he thinks happened (see yesterday for a summary). It is ridiculous to suppose that Kopel would have needed to ask Lott…
tlambert | April 6, 2003So, was the attribution of the 98% to Kleck's study in the Lott quote below made by Lott, or did Dave Kopel add it? "Guns clearly deter criminals, with Americans using guns defensively over 2 million times each year---five times more frequently than the 430,000 times guns were used to commit crimes in 1997, according to research by Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck. Kleck's study of defensive gun uses found that ninety-eight percent of the time simply brandishing the weapon is sufficient to stop an attack."
Our first piece of evidence is Kopel's recollections…
tlambert | April 5, 2003[Note: This is a copy of a document found at this link on John Lott's website on April 6, 2003. I have added critical commentary, written in italics like this. Tim Lambert ]Statement on John Lott's Survey Work on Self-Defensive Uses of Guns
by David B. Mustard Monday 10 February 2003
Background
John and I started working on our concealed carry paper in the fall of 1995. I was finishing my Ph.D. in Economics at the University of Chicago, and John was a faculty member. We worked on our paper intensively from about February 1996 to September 1996. We presented it at the American Law and…
tlambert | April 5, 2003[Note: This is a copy of a document found on John Lott's website on April 6, 2003. I have added critical commentry, written in italics like this. Tim Lambert ]
------ Forwarded Message
From: "Dave Kopel"
Date: Sun, 9 Mar 2003 13:07:49 -0700
To: <cut>
Subject: Re: FW: A quick question. John Lott
I've got no specific recollection of editing the piece, but the
evidence seems to indicate that attributing the 98% figure
to Kleck was an error by the Independence Institute,
rather than an error on the author's part.
Dave Kopel
------ End of Forwarded Message
Apparently, some credence is…
tlambert | April 3, 2003Noam Alaska doesn't think much of Lott's new book.
Mac Diva explains what she thinks is wrong with Lott's research.
tlambert | April 3, 2003Julian Sanchez suggests that if Lott really got the 98% from his survey, then by marrying the 2.5 million Kleck DGU estimate with the 98% brandishing number, Lott is indulging in cherry-picking the numbers most favourable to his position from different surveys. Well, in this case I don't think that Lott is cherry picking. In statements before May 1999, Lott would say that there were 2.5 million DGUs (Kleck's DGU number) with 98% of them involving brandishing. After May 1999 (which was when he first claimed that the 98% came from his own survey) Lott switched to…
tlambert | April 2, 2003Julian Sanchez has another thoughtful post on the question of whether it was Lott or Kopel who attributed the 98% to Kleck. I'm still trying to collect my thoughts on this one, but I should correct one statement he makes. Even if the attribution is established to be Kopel's it does not follow that Lott did not get the 98% by misreading Kleck. Lott got the defensive gun use numbers 2.5 million, 760,000, and 3.6 million,from Kleck but never attributed them to him in his public statements.
tlambert | April 1, 2003Pro-gun activist Neal Knox has leaped to Lott's defence. He claims that Lott is in trouble for getting the same result in his survey as Kleck when in fact concerns were raised because Lott's brandishing number was so very different from Kleck's. I was going to do a detailed dissection of Knox's claims, but gzuckier beat me to it.
Mac Diva does not believe the story about the Independence Institute editing Lott's article. I will post more on this tomorrow.
tlambert | March 31, 2003Harvard's David Hemenway has a devastating review of Lott's new book, The Bias against Guns. Apparently Lott claims that the "impact from closing the gun show 'loophole'" was a reduction of 102% in Indiana's auto theft rate, which would have meant that thieves were returning previously stolen cars.
tlambert | March 30, 2003John R. Lott, Jr. Resident Scholar American Enterprise Institute [Critical Commentary by Tim Lambert
This is a copy of the original document by Lott, downloaded from Lott's web site here on March 21, 2003. My comments appear in italics like this.]
Guns make it easier for bad things to happen, but they also make it easier for people to stop crime and prevent bad things from happening. The important question that ultimately concerns everyone is the net effect, whether on net guns save lives or cost lives and whether they increase or decrease violent crime that threaten so many…
tlambert | March 29, 2003In today's letters page in the Washington Post, Saul Cornell catches Lott misquoting Mustard. In a response to this review of Evaluating Gun Policy, Lott claims that Mustard wrote that the data showed "sharp decreases in murder, rape and robbery." Cornell replies: Scholars have a duty to check their sources before they go into print. The quotation that Lott attributes to Mustard does not appear anywhere in the book I reviewed, Evaluating Gun Policy. What Mustard actually argues there is that the more restrictive nature of concealed-carry laws passed in the…
tlambert | March 29, 2003One feature of Lott's behaviour in this affair is his refusal to admit that he attributed the 98% figure to "national surveys" and to Gary Kleck. Instead, he told Slate "A lot of those discussions could have been written more clearly."
However, in on-line publications by the Independence Institute and the Heartland Institute he wrote: "Kleck's study of defensive gun uses found that ninety-eight percent of the time simply brandishing the weapon is sufficient to stop an attack."
This isn't the sightest bit unclear. He is attributing the 98% to Kleck. How…
tlambert | March 28, 2003Meanwhile, 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…
tlambert | March 28, 2003I've done some more investigation in Lott's latest explanation for his Mary Rosh postings:I originally used my own name but switched after receiving threatening and obnoxious telephone calls from other Internet posters.
The first group of Lott postings were made between 3 June 1998 and 14 July 1998. All the responses were polite. In one of his postings Lott complains about getting threatening phone calls, but not about phone calls from other Internet posters. You ought to see what happens to my telephone calls when someone like a Charles Schumer or Josh Sugarmann…
tlambert | March 27, 2003This story in the Zanesville Times Recorder highlights the problems that Lott's behaviour has caused for advocates of concealed carry laws. They are now having to say things like:"Lott's research has little bearing on the state's need for responsible and fair concealed weapons legislation."
Meanwhile, Lott said: "But this debate shouldn't be just about me. I suppose it's flattering. But there have been lots of papers published on this issue. All have them have shown a range from small benefits to large benefits."
Lott is well aware of Ayres and Donahue,…
tlambert | March 26, 2003Mac Diva comments on Lott's claims in his Washington Post letter. Mac doesn't believe Lott's story about the threatening phone calls that forced Lott into the Mary Rosh deception.
tlambert | March 24, 2003Guy Cabot comments on how Lott keeps trying to make it look like the question was whether he had a disk crash or not. Jo Fish isn't impressed either. Tom Spencer suggests that the American Enterprise Institute is looking for a way to let Lott go. skippy thinks Lott should "stop lying".
Postwatch also comments on Lott's letter. He doesn't "understand why the Post wouldn't allow someone to correct a blatant error". The explanation is simple---Lott invented the "blatant error".
tlambert | March 23, 2003The Washington Post has printed a letter from Lott responding to two Washington Post articles, one about his survey, and one about Mary Rosh. Lott makes several false claims in his letter:
that the Post did not print a letter from "an academic who wanted to correct a statement attributed to him that was the opposite of what he had written." You can check the two articles and see for yourself that the only statements attributed to an academic were those attributed to Lott, and he has not disputed those ones.
"Academics have confirmed ... discussions that I had back in 1996 and…