More Guns Less Crime
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 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 | January 31, 2003Natalie Solent is disappointed in Lott, but is still impressed by More Guns, Less Crime. Unfortunately, the 98% figure is not an aberration. It is typical of the remarkable carelessness with facts that Lott displays and his refusal to back down even when obviously in the wrong. For more examples, see here and here.
Steve Verdon is continuing to work his way through Ayres and Donahue. He has found a misprint in one of their tables where some coefficients are missing and wonders what I would say if I found something similar in Lott and Mustard. Well, I did find…
tlambert | January 25, 2003If you are interested in the question of whether Lott's claim that passing concealed carry laws reduce crime, you might want to read this article, which reports that a new book, Evaluating Gun Policy will be published in February contesting Lott's claim. The book is partly based on the research in the Ayres and Donahue paper I mentioned a few days ago. I also located Lott's response to that paper.
tlambert | January 18, 2003Steve Verdon has responded to my critique of More Guns, Less Crime.
Verdon starts by claiming that Lott's argument doesn't depend on their being more guns or less crime. He argues that you just need "more people carrying (concealed) existing guns legally" and that Lott found a substitution from violent crime to property crime rather than "less crime". Verdon then accuses me of being "extremely dishonest" for stating that Lott is arguing that more guns cause less crime. I find his accusation very strange. If, in a book entitled More Guns, Less Crime…
tlambert | January 14, 2003Mark Kleiman has an insightful post that is definitely worth reading. Mark observes that even though Lott's work on concealed carry laws does not rely on his alleged survey, destroying his credibility means that people cannot trust the results of his concealed carry laws. Actually, there is actually no reason to trust the results of his research on concealed carry laws in any case, since it has been superseded by the work of Ayres and Donahue who repeated it using more data and better models:
"Those who were swayed by the statistical evidence…
tlambert | August 18, 1996[Originally posted to firearmsreg Aug 19 1996]
Daniel Polsby writes:
McDowall very freely interprets his five-county study as suggestive
of causation. I tend to share the view that one should be slow to
change public policy on the basis of a single study, though one might
say of Lott-Mustard that it amounts to at least 610
McDowall-Loftin-Wiersema studies, as it covers that many times more
counties, to say nothing of controlling for a lot more variables. I
should say, however, that ordinarily the heavy lifting of causation
involves the existence of a theory which models how the world works…
tlambert | August 16, 1996[Originally posted to firearmsreg Aug 16 1996]
Daniel Polsby writes:
Mr. Lambert, and for that matter most others on this list, assume
that firearms are used defensively when they are brandished. All of
the endless back and forth about survey research techniques of
establishing how often this sort of thing happens has embedded this
assumption.
No, my comments were directed specifically at the deterrence
theory. IF concealed weapon permit holders used their weapons
frequently (say two or three times a week) and IF these incidents were
given wide publicity (so that criminals were made aware of…
tlambert | August 14, 1996[Originally posted to firearmreg on Aug 15 1996]
Daniel Polsby writes:
Lott's results are highly plausible and internally consistent.
Highly plausible? Lets look at Dade county:
Lott reckons that the carry law caused a reduction of 8% in murders,
5% in rapes, 7% in aggravated assaults and 2% in robberies. For Dade
county that translates to 1,500 fewer aggravated assaults, 450 fewer
robberies, 65 fewer rapes and 30 fewer murders each year. From Cramer
and Kopel's paper on CCW (TN Law Review v 62p733) one learns that "the
police kept track of every known incident involving [Dade] county's…