The War on Guns is a noteworthy, fast-paced must-read for anyone who wants to understand the issues related to guns in America—and I don’t know how someone can understand America without understanding this constitutional issue.
Given how Lott has spent his career, I’m not surprised this is such an important book.
I first met John R. Lott, Jr. in 2006 at a cocktail party in Arlington, VA. I was speaking with a liberal journalist about his soon-to-be-released book on Iraq when John Lott joined us. John listened for a moment and then said to the author, “I’m curious. You say you just finished a book on the Iraq war. I always find it so hard to finish a book. I get so deep into the research I have a hard time stopping to write. I’m guessing you had a hard time leaving Iraq. There is so much to investigate and understand.”
The author said, “I didn’t go to Iraq.”
John paused with this quizzical look on his face before asking, “Oh, how did you do your research?”
The author said, “I didn’t have to do much. I mean, I already know what I think.”
An awkward silence ensued before the liberal author shrugged and moved away.
Yeah, I liked John from that moment—well, and before. I had, of course, already read and learned much from his groundbreaking book More Guns, Less Crime. That book detailed his research that found that, despite what people are often told, violent crime rates actually tend to go down when states pass “shall-issue” concealed-carry laws. (Shall-issue laws force a licensing agent to give anyone a concealed-carry permit to carry a handgun as long as the individual passing certain criteria as stipulated by law.)
As soon as More Guns, Less Crime was published a lot of academics made it their mission to prove Lott to be the fraud they were sure he must be. The thing is, the researchers have kept finding that Lott is right. For example, a study by Carlisle E. Moody and Thomas B. Marvell that was published in Econ Journal Watch in January 2009 looked into Lott’s findings and determined: “Many articles have been published finding that shall-issue laws reduce crime. Only one article, by Ayres and Donohue who employ a model that combines a dummy variable with a post-law trend, claims to find that shall-issue laws increase crime. However, the only way that they can produce the result that shall-issue laws increase crime is to confine the span of analysis to five years. We show, using their own estimates, that if they had extended their analysis by one more year, they would have concluded that these laws reduce crime.”
More recently, to continue his detailed search for the truth about guns in America Lott founded the Crime Prevention Research Center. Lott says that a few foundations and some individuals donated “a few hundred thousand dollars” to get his foundation started. His nonprofit “has 501(C)(3) status and does not accept donations from gun or ammunition makers or organizations such as the NRA.”
He also said, “The NRA and other gun-rights groups are doing a lot of important things, but we decided to fill an influential niche by not taking money from either side.
“Still,” Lott told me, “honest research leads to real answers—not political spin.” He says these real answers tend to bother the anti-gun groups, such as those funded by Michael Bloomberg.
I’ve found the same thing. While doing the investigative reporting for my book The Future of the Gun I spent a lot of time with police officers, gun-rights lobbyists, inner-city gang members, public-health experts, engineers at firearms manufacturers, victims of criminals with guns, heroes who’d stopped a bad guy with a gun … but though I tried and tried the anti-gun groups wouldn’t even answer emails.
So now Lott has given us The War on Guns. It is worth reading and gifting to those who don’t know the facts on this important issue.
- Hardcover: 256 pages
- Publisher: Regnery Publishing (August 1, 2016)
- Language: English
- ISBN-10: 1621575802
- ISBN-13: 978-1621575801
- Product Dimensions: 6 x 1 x 9 inches
- Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
- Average Customer Review: 311 customer reviews
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Amazon Best Sellers Rank:
#30,936 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #11 in Shooting in Hunting
- #5 in Firearm Collecting
- #29 in Political Freedom (Books)
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