John R. Lott Jr. > Quotes

“Criminals are motivated by self-preservation, and handguns can therefore be a deterrent. The potential defensive nature of guns is further evidenced by the different rates of so-called “hot burglaries,” where a resident is at home when a criminal strikes.16 In Canada and Britain, both with tough gun-control laws, almost half of all burglaries are “hot burglaries.” In contrast, the United States, with fewer restrictions, has a “hot burglary” rate of only 13 percent.”
― John R. Lott, More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws

“criminals have ways of getting guns even when guns are banned. For example, drug gangs will get their guns to protect their drugs just as easily as they get their drugs to sell. Thus gun control primarily disarms the citizens who obey the laws.”
― John R. Lott Jr., The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies

“Democrats are unwilling to admit that their gun control regulations are disarming poor Americans. President Obama characterizes Voter ID laws that offer free IDs as “voter suppression laws,”31 but sees no irony in imposing much greater inconveniences and costs on prospective gun owners.”
― John R. Lott Jr., The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies

“The Batman movie theater killer, James Holmes, initially considered attacking an airport. In his diary, which was released in 2015, he explained his decision against targeting the airport because of “substantial security.”23 He then selected the only theater within twenty minutes of his apartment that banned permitted concealed handguns.”
― John R. Lott Jr., The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies

“The benefits of gun ownership have generally gone ignored in medical journals that have studied gun ownership, what is called the public health literature. There is no mention that widespread gun ownership deters criminals from breaking into homes. There is no mention that gun ownership helps protect residents from harm in the event of a break-in, or that mass public shooters consistently attack gun-free zones where they don’t have to worry about victims being able to defend themselves. And gun owners—contrary to what the media advises—should not unquestioningly store their guns locked and unloaded. That defeats the purpose of being ready at a moment’s notice.”
― John R. Lott Jr., The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies

“When it comes to television advertising, Michael Bloomberg out-spends the NRA and all other self-defense groups by 6.3 to one. The money produces political attack ads that accuse supporters of right-to-carry on college campuses of “allowing criminals to carry hidden, loaded guns in our schools.”
― John R. Lott Jr., The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies

“In 1996, Britain banned handguns. Prior to that time, over 54,000 Britons owned handguns.70 The ban was so tight that even shooters training for the Olympics were forced to travel to Switzerland or other countries to practice. Four years have elapsed since the ban was introduced, and gun crimes have risen by an astounding 40 percent.”
― John R. Lott, The Bias Against Guns: Why Almost Everything You'Ve Heard About Gun Control Is Wrong

“The world recoiled in horror in 2012 when 20 Connecticut schoolchildren and six adults were killed at Sandy Hook Elementary School. . . . The weapon was a Bushmaster AR-15 semiautomatic rifle adapted from its original role as a battlefield weapon. The AR-15, which is designed to inflict maximum casualties with rapid bursts, should never have been available for purchase by civilians (emphasis added).1 —New York Times editorial, March 4, 2016 Assault weapons were banned for 10 years until Congress, in bipartisan obeisance to the gun lobby, let the law lapse in 2004. As a result, gun manufacturers have been allowed to sell all manner of war weaponry to civilians, including the super destructive .50-caliber sniper rifle. . . .(emphasis added)2 —New York Times editorial, December 11, 2015 [James Holmes the Aurora, Colorado Batman Movie Theater Shooter] also bought bulletproof vests and other tactical gear” (emphasis added).3 —New York Times, July 22, 2012 It is hard to debate guns if you don’t know much about the subject. But it is probably not too surprising that gun control advocates who live in New York City know very little about guns. Semi-automatic guns don’t fire “rapid bursts” of bullets. The New York Times might be fearful of .50-caliber sniper rifles, but these bolt-action .50-caliber rifles were never covered by the federal assault weapons ban. “Urban assault vests” may sound like they are bulletproof, but they are made of nylon. These are just a few of the many errors that the New York Times made.4 If it really believes that it has a strong case, it wouldn’t feel the need to constantly hype its claims. What distinguishes the New York Times is that it doesn’t bother running corrections for these errors.”
― John R. Lott Jr., The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies

“Take the Colorado Springs church shooting in December 2007. A parishioner who had the minister’s permission to carry her concealed gun into the church quickly stopped the slaughter before the killer was able to enter the area where thousands of members of the congregation sat.”
― John R. Lott Jr., More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws

“While higher arrest and conviction rates, longer prison sentences, and the death penalty all reduce murders generally, none of these measures had a consistent impact on mass public shootings. Nor did any of the restrictive gun laws. Only one single policy was found to effectively reduce these attacks: the passage of right-to-carry laws, which permit law-abiding citizens to carry concealed handguns.”
― John R. Lott, The Bias Against Guns: Why Almost Everything You'Ve Heard About Gun Control Is Wrong

“In fact, because many Americans keep guns in their homes, burglars in the United States spend more time than burgulars in other countries “casing” a house to ensure that nobody is home. As a result, countries with high gun ownership rates experience dramatically fewer break-ins during periods when the residents are at home.22”
― John R. Lott, The Bias Against Guns: Why Almost Everything You'Ve Heard About Gun Control Is Wrong

“Former Prime Minister of Australia John Howard wrote in the New York Times in 2013, “[T]here is a wide consensus that our 1996 reforms not only reduced the gun-related homicide rate, but also the suicide rate. The Australian Institute of Criminology found that gun-related murders and suicides fell sharply after 1996.”2 But the impact of Australia’s gun buyback in 1996–97 is a lot less obvious than most might think. The buyback resulted in more than 1 million firearms being handed in and destroyed, reducing gun ownership from 3.2 to 2.2 million guns. But since then there has been a steady increase in the number of privately owned guns. By 2010, the total number of privately owned guns was back to the 1996 level.”
― John R. Lott Jr., The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies

“Homeowners who defend themselves make burglars wary of breaking into homes in general. This protects others in the neighborhood from more break-ins. Such spillover effects are frequently referred to as “third-party effects” or “external benefits.” Non–gun owners in some sense are “free riders”—another economic term—on the defensive efforts provided by their gun-owning neighbors.”
― John R. Lott, The Bias Against Guns: Why Almost Everything You'Ve Heard About Gun Control Is Wrong

“But there is another side, one rarely mentioned in the media. Concealed weapons in the hands of good people can be used to save lives and stop attacks. The prospect of a criminal encountering a victim who may be armed will deter some attacks in the first place.5 Carrying a gun is also the safest course of action when one is confronted by a criminal.6”
― John R. Lott Jr., The Bias Against Guns: Why Almost Everything You'Ve Heard About Gun Control Is Wrong

“There is another real cost to linking gun violence with mental illness. Dr. Renee Binder, President of the American Psychiatric Association and herself a strong gun control advocate, rightly points out that, “People with mental illness are far more likely to be victims of violence . . . the majority of individuals with mental illness will never be violent toward others.”
― John R. Lott Jr., The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies

“Blacks have the most to gain from Stand Your Ground laws, and there is no evidence that the laws are applied in any way that discriminates against blacks. My research even suggests just the opposite. But this conversation about discrimination should not be blown out of proportion. The most important thing is that Stand Your Ground saves lives.”
― John R. Lott Jr., The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies

“In 2000, when Gallup began asking Americans whether they thought that they were safer with a gun in the home, only 35 percent of Americans answered yes. Fifty-one percent said that a gun would put them in more danger. By 2014, the numbers had flipped, with people saying, by a margin of 63 to 30 percent, that they are safer with a gun in the home. That is a twenty-eight percentage point shift, a change which roughly corresponds to the twenty-four percentage point increase in Americans who oppose more gun control. Changing”
― John R. Lott Jr., The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies

“The importance of newsworthiness can be seen in other ways. For example, even though fewer than one out of 1,000 defensive gun uses result in the attacker’s death, “newsworthiness” means the media will only cover the bloodier cases, where the attacker is virtually always shot and usually killed. Woundings might be about six times more frequent than killings, but one could never tell that from the stories the media chooses to cover.”
― John R. Lott, The Bias Against Guns: Why Almost Everything You'Ve Heard About Gun Control Is Wrong

“against my research were true. The claim is especially ludicrous, since the NRA doesn’t seem to fund any statistical research at all. When I appeared on CNN with Dershowitz in July 2012, I forcefully responded, “Take that back. The NRA hasn’t paid for my research. That’s simply ridiculous.”13 When asked about these claims, the NRA told Cybercast News Service: “The NRA has never funded John Lott’s research.”14 Dershowitz declined to provide any support for his charges when Cybercast asked him for evidence.”
― John R. Lott Jr., The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies

“Why is it only in these gun-free zones that we see so many people killed? Attackers have good reason to target gun-free zones. As shown earlier, concealed carry permit holders have stopped many mass public shootings. In addition to the cases listed earlier, mass public shootings have been stopped in Pearl, Mississippi; Edinboro, Pennsylvania; Grundy, Virginia; Memphis, Tennessee; Colorado Springs, Colorado; Portland, Oregon; and Salt Lake City, Utah. It has happened at colleges, in busy downtowns, in churches, in malls, and outside apartment buildings. Concealed carry saves lives everywhere. Mass public shooters avoid places where victims can defend themselves. After all, how quickly people can arrive with a gun to stop the attack reduces the number of likely victims and the publicity that the killer will be able to get.”
― John R. Lott Jr., The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies

“No matter how you look at it, Obama is wrong in saying that America leads the world in mass public shootings. It is wrong even when we look at mass public shootings as they are traditionally defined: four or more deaths in a public place. Many European countries actually have higher rates of death from mass public shootings. It is simply a matter of adjusting for America’s much larger population. Norway, after all, only has a population of 5 million people.”
― John R. Lott Jr., The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies

“Even though the survey I conducted during the fall of 2002 indicates that simply brandishing a gun stops crimes 95 percent of the time, and other surveys have also found high rates, it is very rare to see such a story.”
― John R. Lott, The Bias Against Guns: Why Almost Everything You'Ve Heard About Gun Control Is Wrong

“Every place that has banned guns (either all guns or all handguns) has seen murder rates go up. You cannot point to one place where murder rates have fallen, whether Chicago or D.C. or even island nations such as England, Jamaica, and Ireland, or obscure places such as the Solomon Islands.”
― John R. Lott Jr., The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies

“There is a clear consensus among economists about self-defense, gun-free zones, firearms and suicide, and concealed handgun laws. Among North American economists:          •    Eighty-eight percent say that guns are more frequently “used in self-defense than they are used in the commission of crime.”          •    Ninety-one percent believe that gun-free zones are “more likely to attract criminals than they are to deter them.”          •    Seventy-two percent do not agree that “a gun in the home causes an increase in the risk of suicide.”          •    Ninety-one percent say that “concealed handgun permit holders are much more law-abiding than the typical American.”          •    Eighty-one percent say that permitted concealed handguns lower the murder rate. After including all those who have published worldwide, these percentages fall by between three and eight percentage points. But the numbers are still quite high, and largely mirror the literature surveys on concealed carry laws.15”
― John R. Lott Jr., The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies

“Nearly 12,000 murdered with guns each year,” parroted Columbia in an online post announcing the workshop. In fact, the FBI reports that there were 8,124 murder victims in 2014. Since 2010, the number of victims has stayed below 9,000.28 Columbia also repeated the absurd claim that the U.S. has a firearm murder rate “20 times higher than other developed countries.” Chile has a murder rate very similar to that of the U.S. Brazil and Russia are both developed countries that have much higher firearm murder rates than the U.S.”
― John R. Lott Jr., The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies

“In my third edition of More Guns, Less Crime, I provided the first published, peer-reviewed, nationwide study on Stand Your Ground laws. I found that these laws lowered murder rates by about 9 percent. Overall violent crime rates also declined.”
― John R. Lott Jr., The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies

“If a national pollster asked you if you owned a firearm, would you determine to tell him or her the truth or would you feel it was none of their business?”16 Thirty-five percent of current gun owners said it was none of the pollster’s business. This answer is slightly more common among those who claim not to be gun owners. The same GSS poll—the one that finds gun ownership to be at a record low—also finds that “confidence in all three branches of government is at or near record lows.”
― John R. Lott Jr., The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies

“After the phone call from Daley, the University of Chicago presented me with my two termination options. I wrote back to Dean Fischel—whom I believed I had been on good terms with—that I was “stunned and shocked at being requested to resign.” I told him that I had gone to the conference simply to answer reporters’ questions about my research. I asked him whether, if I took the second option, I could still talk about my book and other research. Fischel responded, “I cannot give you a specific answer to your questions.” He noted, “With respect [to] damage to your reputation, many think you have only yourself to blame by winding up in a public confrontation at the mayor’s press conference.” He added in a later email: “If you cannot make yourself for all practical purposes invisible (at least in terms of any mention of the university), you should resign.” I took the second option and completely stopped talking to the media for over three months.”
― John R. Lott Jr., The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies

“In 2000, 47 police officers were killed with a gun, out of which 33 cases involved a handgun, and only one of these firearm deaths involved the police officer’s gun.53”
― John R. Lott Jr., The Bias Against Guns: Why Almost Everything You'Ve Heard About Gun Control Is Wrong

“This 2002 story from a local Chicago newspaper illustrates how the debate over guns often comes across as purely emotional. Facts do matter, but too often the facts that people rely on are much more than simply statistical numbers.”
― John R. Lott, The Bias Against Guns: Why Almost Everything You'Ve Heard About Gun Control Is Wrong