John Lott

John Lott is at it again. This time he accuses Chris Brown of misquoting him when in fact Lott's post had been quietly corrected after Brown pointed out that is was wrong. This seems to be the same behaviour that got him into trouble over his mystery survey. Rather than concede that he had made an error when he wrote: "If national surveys are correct, 98 percent of the time that people use guns defensively, they merely have to brandish a weapon to break off an attack." Lott invented a survey of his own that he claimed produced the 98% number, even though that was mathematically impossible.
Despiting having no supporting data, Lott claimed over and over and over again that merely brandishing a gun was sufficient to scare off a criminal 98% of the time. In 2002, he conducted a survey that he claims gave a very similar number -- 95%. But nobody can replicate this result. And by "replicate" I mean using exactly his data and the methods he said he used. You can read about my attempt to replicate here and also download a spreadsheet with my calculations. (You have to get the data from Lott because he doesn't allow redistribution of his data.) And I'm not the only one. Ina peer…
A few years ago, the National Research Council reviewed the evidence on firearms and crime and concluded: There is no credible evidence that "right-to-carry" laws, which allow qualified adults to carry concealed handguns, either decrease or increase violent crime. Paul Cassell says that he finds plausible a new paper by Moody and Marvell that reanalyzes the data and finds carry laws associated with less crime. I do not find Marvel and Moody's conclusions plausible and they are not supported by the results of their regressions. The results are all over the place. Some crimes are up, some…