survey
tlambert | January 24, 2003From: John Lott Sent: Saturday, January 25, 2003 2:49 PM Please post
Claims by archpundit (apparently reflecting similar claims made in other places):
Lott claims his new survey will solve the problems, but that assumes he oversamples DGU's. If he doesn't, his finding will be as pointless as the above. . . .
So he collected 36 demographic variables in his survey? Or are there 36 breakdowns of a smaller number of demographics collected? Either way this was a pretty involved survey that had to take a lot of time on the phone to collect all that data. Surveying isn't nearly as quick as it…
tlambert | January 24, 2003Atrios has a disturbing report on David Gross. He is an extremely active pro-gun activist and was involved in a dirty trick that stole the name of a pro-control organization. Ouch. Well, I may start getting many more emails from Nigeria, but I'm still inclined to believe him. However, I imagine that lots of other people won't, so we can't consider the question of whether Lott did a survey to be closed. We really need one of his student surveyors to come forward. The Washington Times whitewash may well have hurt Lott, by discouraging people…
tlambert | January 24, 2003Robert Stacey McCain has a disgraceful whitewash of the affair in the Washington Times. The most important thing about this affair has always been whether Lott's 98% brandishing claim is true. By any objective reading of the existing evidence it is not. On the one hand we have nine surveys that say the number is much lower, on the other hand we have Lott's new survey, where even Lott concedes that the sample size is so small that it does not contradict the big surveys. By advancing this 98% figure over 50 times Lott is giving people dangerously misleading advice. Advice…
tlambert | January 23, 2003Ok, so what about this witness being a pro-gun activist? Well, he made it perfectly clear to me that he was strongly pro-gun and greatly admired John Lott in the long message that was sent to firearmsregprof. I should have mentioned it that day, but I knew all of the detail would be in Lindgren's long report so I didn't think to say something. In hindsight, I realize it made it look as if this guy might have concealed that he was a big fan of Lott's from us. He didn't. I apologize for the misleading impression I created.
Lindgren has sent…
tlambert | January 23, 2003Julian Sanchez drops another bombshell: the person who came forward saying that he believed that he had been surveyed is a pro-gun activist. Julian's revelations prompted John Quiggin to change his mind---he thinks Lott's employer should fire him.
tlambert | January 22, 2003Well, after yesterday's revelations, blogspace seems to be split. On the one hand, we have Clayton Cramer, Steve Verdon, Jane Galt, Glenn Reynolds and Marie Gryphon who think Lott has been exonerated. On the other hand Kevin Drum and Tom Spencer are not yet convinced. On the gripping hand we have Jim Henley and John Quiggin who think that it has been established that Lott conducted a survey, but the small sample size means that Lott could not properly use it make his "98% brandishing" claim. Julian Sanchez's friend also makes the point about the sample…
tlambert | January 21, 2003Julian Sanchez posts some comments from someone who believes he was surveyed by Lott. Lott is in error when he states that there were no other gun use surveys at that time, but once these have been eliminated, we can regard it as established that Lott conducted a survey in 1997.
James Lindgren writes:
I am very pleased to be able to say that my informal inquiry has been brought to a successful conclusion. I had a long substantive interview with David Gross Sunday night and a short discussion tonight (Monday). I will write up my Sunday interview sometime in the next 5 days. It has…
tlambert | January 19, 2003If you haven't looked at the new section 4 in Lindgren's report, you should.
In his latest response Lott asks:
"There is also a question as to why people have waited so long to ask for this additional information when people have known about the lost data for years."
A few people have known about the lost data since the Sep/Oct 2000 edition of The Criminologist came out. I only heard about it when Duncan contacted me in August last year. Most people probably only heard about the problem when this story broke.
In the summer of 2002 Duncan asked for more…
tlambert | January 18, 2003Lindgren has released a new version of his report. It's long, but it's an absolute must read. If you've read the earlier version, you can skip to section 4 to read Lindgren's description of how Lott is trying to change his story.
The disgraceful way that Lott has behaved towards Lindgren fits into the pattern of behaviour he has displayed---Lott absolutely can not, will not admit to making a mistake. If he wanted to change his story about the Chicago students, all he had to do was say "Did I say they were all from U of Chicago? Oops. That's not what I meant to say. I…
tlambert | January 17, 2003Julian Sanchez finds evidence that Lott lost data because of a computer crash. I'm afraid that he hasn't discovered anything new---his time would have been better spent reading Lindgren's report:
"I talked with one of Lott's co-authors on another paper, Bill Landes, and received emails from David Mustard, another co-author, and Gregory Huck, Lott's editor at the time at the University of Chicago Press. With varying degrees of certainty, all give circumstantial support to Lott's story of a sudden loss of data and text on projects, requiring delays and regeneration of work."
Marie…
tlambert | January 16, 2003Otis Dudley Duncan has sent me these comments, which draw attention to a key point that almost all bloggers have missed:
"There are two distinct issues in this case.
Lott repeatedly made erroneous statements about the findings of other researchers. None of the national surveys that he cited by name actually had any figure at all for merely brandishing or firing. One of them, the Roper survey (which was mentioned in the Feb. 6, 1997, Nebraska testimony) never even did any survey on defensive gun use. Of the polls that did collect data on firing, none of them obtained a figure anywhere…
tlambert | January 16, 2003Jim Henley gets another email from Lott. It's not fair!
Roger Ailes asks "how reliable is a self-reporting survey of 'defensive gun use' in the first place?". You're opening a real can of worms here, Roger. Survey estimates of the frequency of defensive gun use range from 80,000 (NCVS 87-92) to 23,000,000 (NSPOF). There is heated debate in the criminology literature as to what the correct number is. You can, for example, read Hemenway ("100,000 DGUs"), Kleck ("2.5 million DGUs"), Smith ("both sides are wrong") or my own endless writings on this topic. However, despite such huge…
tlambert | January 15, 2003 I want to comment further on the email Lott sent to some bloggers. Lott states that he has been responsive and implies that he was somehow ambushed on this issue.
Duncan first asked Lott for evidence for his survey last June. Lott did not respond. I sent him the first version of my report last September, and regularly sent him updates. He has not responded to any of them. I've tried my best to be open, while Lott has acted like someone with something to hide. For example, this new survey was done months ago, but Lott kept it secret until Dec 26. The results…
tlambert | January 14, 2003In Lott's latest response, he changes his story again. He originally told Lindgren that hadn't discussed the survey with anyone at the time. Now he has recalled the name of an economist he discussed it with at the time. Unfortunately, when Julian Sanchez contacted this economist, he was unable to recall those discussions. He also originally told Lindgren that the survey was conducted by "several University of Chicago undergraduate volunteers" (a survey of the size he claims to have conducted would have required at least ten students, and…
tlambert | January 13, 2003Lindgren has updated his report. Main changes are the inclusion of a reply from John Lott and a dissection of Lott's new "Did I say three months? I meant one month. Yeah, that's the ticket!" claim.
Lots more people have blogged on this: Glenn Reynolds, Pejman Yousefzadeh, skippy, Ken Parish, Roger Ailes (twice), Atrios and Guy Cabot. And Marie Gryphon, Julian Sanchez, Jane Galt, Kevin Drum and Thomas M. Spencer have updates or new comments.
Glenn Reynolds and Thomas Spencer mention Bellesiles, but from opposite sides. Glenn states that "Lott's critics want, rather too…
tlambert | January 12, 2003After discussion has simmered along via email, Usenet and mailing list, Marie Gryphon has posted a nice summary on her blog.
Several blogs have picked up on this: Julian Sanchez, Jim Henley, Jane Galt, Kevin Drum and Thomas M. Spencer.
Clayton Cramer has posted a letter from John Lott on his blog. Some highlights:
"The overwhelming majority of the survey work was done at the beginning of the period over which the survey was done. It has obviously been a while, but my recollection is that the small number of people surveyed after the first four or five weeks (mainly…
tlambert | October 6, 2002 [On Oct 7 2002 I posted this to firearmsregprof and emailed it to Lott.]
However, that isn't what I was referring to when I wrote "mathematically impossible". Lott often goes on to claim that 3/4 of the times the DG User fires the shots are warning shots, that only 0.5% of DG uses involve a shot fired at the offender. Kleck's survey turned up about 200 incidents. Since Lott's survey had half the sample size of Kleck's, the most he could expect to find would be 100 incidents (slightly less if you allow for the slightly lower DGU incidence he found). 0.5% of 100 is 0.5. It is…
tlambert | October 2, 2002 [On Oct 03 2002 I posted this to firearmsregprof.]
Glenn Reynolds writes:
I agree that Mr. Lambert's "payback for Bellesiles" angle is pretty obvious.
Your allegation is false.
I also note that Lott isn't accused of publishing fraudulent scholarship, but rather of making public statements that appear to be obviously true, but for which he has not published research as a backup.
Are you actually asserting that it is "obviously true" that "98 percent of the time that people use guns defensively, they merely have to brandish a weapon to break off an attack"? That's the claim that…
tlambert | October 2, 2002 [On Oct 03 2002 I posted this to firearmsregprof.]
Norman Heath writes:
Tim Lambert asked for suggestions as to how John Lott might have formed a belief about the proportion of DGUs that involve gunfire, prior to having conducted a survery. I took this to mean that Lambert was open to those suggestions which involve innocent explanations. But when I offer an innocent explanation, Tim responds by pointing out that a sinister one also exists. I think Lott is owed the courtesy of assuming his innocence, and it still seems to me that there are justifications that Lott might have had, or…
tlambert | September 26, 2002 [On Sep 27 2002 I posted this to firearmsregprof.]
Norman Heath writes:
Just a suggestion, but perhaps Lott simply made a rough comparison between the number of claimed DGUs and the total number of shootings. I.e. if total shootings is (making this up) 120,000 and we subtract 35,000 suicides, 5000 police shootings, 200 hunting accidents, 15,000 gun murders, then even without accounting for non-fatal criminal shootings the highest possible number of live-fire DGUs would be about 64,800 (again, using made-up numbers). If at least 764,00 people claimed DGUs, then the number of those who…