Comments on: More guns

By: Xrlq

Xrlq — Wed, 22 Aug 2007 00:30:36 +0000

Not handy, but I’m pretty sure their study appears in the bibliographies of Lott’s book, and probably Kleck’s as well, for that matter. Their study focused on career criminals who admitted to having foregone crimes when they feared the potential victim may be armed.

By: Nomen Nescio

Nomen Nescio — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 11:45:19 +0000

oh please. using internet sock puppets to tout his own work is discrediting, full stop. academically it might not prove his work is wrong, as such, but we’re not discussing academic merit here; we are necessarily talking politics on this subject, and that sort of behaviour is political suicide, from anybody. even academically, if you’d found out a professor whose class you’d considered taking had acted so, would you still sign up for it?

Kleck, as far as i know, is a much better reference, and i rather like to quote him myself. i’ll have to make the time to read the other two, to be honest. got any full references to papers of theirs you’d recommend?

By: Xrlq

Xrlq — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 10:42:45 +0000

Lott was never “discredited” by anything, except the fact that a lot of gun-grabbers who really, really, really want him to be wrong ever since he came on the scene. Mary Rosh was lame, but it has nothing to do with the validity of Lott’s research, and less to do with Kleck’s, Wright and Rossi’s, or that of anyone else who has looked at the issue in-depth enough to determine that gun control has a significant impact on crime after all – and not the kind of impact their proponents promised.

By: Nomen Nescio

Nomen Nescio — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 02:55:05 +0000

that’s if you believe lott, though. unfortunately, even if he’s right, his rather unprofessional conduct has pretty much discredited him totally, so quoting him isn’t going to convince anybody. quoting lott just invites your opposition to bring up mary rosh.

By: Xrlq

Xrlq — Tue, 21 Aug 2007 02:36:47 +0000

Lott’s research shows pretty conclusively that more guns in the hands of the law-abiding translates into significantly less crime, not “no discernible impact on crime whatsoever.” So too did Gary Kleck’s before, even if Kleck himself was reluctant to put two and two together. This new study probably can’t do that, since it compares apples to oranges. Apples to apples comparisons are generally restricted to a single jurisdiction, e.g., Kleck comparing the number of crimes committed vs. prevented with guns in the U.S., or Lott comparing the violent crime rates of a series of states immediately before and after their CCW laws changed significantly. No comparison of France to Britain or Germany to Japan can get you that kind of clarity; there’s too damned many variables.

By: Volunteer Voters » Violence Begets Violence

Volunteer Voters » Violence Begets Violence — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 22:18:47 +0000

[...] Say Uncle reports that a Harvard study confirms the work of John Lott that higher gun ownership does not cause a corresponding increase in gun violence. Share and Enjoy: These icons link to social bookmarking sites where readers can share and discover new web pages. [...]

By: Nomen Nescio

Nomen Nescio — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 15:43:53 +0000

i’m fundamentally skeptical about inter-country statistical comparisons. having emigrated, and been through culture shock, i just don’t think there’s any way to gather truly comparable statistics in separate countries. at least not without the sort of massive effort that will cost enough money to get political interests involved, thus making the whole thing suspect for that reason.

(and i emigrated from one industrialized, high-tech, first world nation to another. i had it easy.)

but the U.S. is still a bit of a laboratory for democracy; we can look at intra-state statistics before and after shall issue carry laws, and i think by and large, we still find no real difference in crime statistics. (after controlling for changes in economy, and other such factors known to influence crime.) Michigan certainly seems to be playing out that way.

so i like to make the argument that liberal carry laws and legal gun availability doesn’t seem to do harm to a society (under general U.S. conditions, anyway); and it increases individual liberty by a slight amount; so why not err on the side of harmless liberty?

oh, and on another note: a recent UN study about male circumcision (which i also find highly suspect, for different reasons) is championed by a Dr. DeKok. (sp?) it’s been in the news recently, google it up.

By: davetha

davetha — Mon, 20 Aug 2007 14:45:07 +0000

Co-written by a guy named Dr. Mauser huh?

Sometimes the Universe just laughs…