So what was the one word correction that prompted Lott to remove his name from his paper? In their draft, Ayres and Donohue wrote (my emphasis):
On the other hand, the temporal pattern, that states adopting shall-issue laws in the late 1980s did better while those adopting in the 1990s did worse, may simply reflect the influence of a time-varying factor (the crack trade?) that caused sharp rises in crime for many states in the late 1980s, and then greater-than-average price declines in the 1990s.
Now the word "price" here makes no sense. Why contrast a crime increase in the 80s with a price (of what?) decrease in the 90s? The context of the sentence is all about crime increases and decreases. It seems obvious that they meant to say "crime" rather than "price".
Not to Lott, however who felt that they were saying that there a relationship between crack cocaine prices and crime. From his draft:
While they don't mention the use by Lott and Mustard of this variables, Ayres & Donohue, supra note 5, at 51, even imply a relationship between crack cocaine prices and crime when they mention "the greater than average price declines in the 1990s."
Lott also puts scare quotes around the word "error" when mentioning their error, implying that it wasn't an error, but what they meant to say.