Dear Dr. Carlson:
The debate in Washington and across the country continues to heat up. I will be testifying in Washington before the Senate and House Joint Economic Committee on September 18th and Pennsylvania Senate Judiciary Committee on September 24th. But that is just a small fraction of what is happening.
Unfortunately, the NRA is not participating in the current public debate — they are not appearing on television or radio — because they know that their representatives asked questions about the NRA’s claimed financial improprieties before they have to deal with the current gun control debate. The NRA isn’t even putting out op-eds. I take no stand on what is happening with the organization, but I only mean to comment on the gap that has created in the overall gun control debate. The vast majority of Republican politicians are hiding from the discussion because they don’t know what arguments to make. Worse, outlets such as National Review, Fox News and to some extent the Washington Times, that would typically be providing our side of the debate have been pushing lots of gun control falsehoods. That makes our role of providing objective, high-quality research all the more important.
This is causing us to work even harder than usual.
The last couple of weeks have incredibly busy. I had a debate at FreedomFest in Las Vegas against Michael Shermer. While much of the audience was presumably sympathetic to my side to begin with, I won a supposedly objective set of jurors by a 10 to 2 vote and the audience by 83% to 17%. Unfortunately, because of copyrights, I can only publicly share my portion of the debate, but it is available here.
Fox News’ Greg Gutfeld has a podcast that I did a couple of days ago that I highly recommend. Greg and I talked for a half-hour, but we had a chance to cover in some detail a significant part of the current gun control debate. If you have time, this is the one interview that I would listen to.
I have also had recent television appearances on One America News, NewsMax, Sinclair Broadcast's 191 local TV stations, and Canada’s CTV. Radio interviews on national shows included Sebastian Gorka, Lars Larson, Buck Sexton, Jim Bohannon, and Joe Pags. The one with Seb Gorka was particularly lively. If you like contentious radio interviews, I did another one in the UK. Another podcast with Chuck Woolery and Mark Young allowed an hour-long in-depth discussion about a range of gun control issues.
We have also put up evaluations of the gun control proposals offered by Senators Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren. Our op-eds have covered everything from a piece with Thomas Massie on Red Flag laws to problems with Universal Background checks to Twitter's continued efforts to silence our side of the debate.
Over the last couple of weeks our research has gotten discussed in every place from Newsweek to the PBS News Hour.
If you missed seeing a recent talk of mine that was carried by C-SPAN a few weeks ago, it is worth a watch as it covers a lot of the issues in the current debate.
For information on activities at the Crime Prevention Research Center, here is a link to our “info deck.” (Sorry, the link didn't work last time we sent it out, but it should now.) Please view in full-screen mode and scroll using the arrow buttons at the bottom of the screen.
But we need help getting this message out. We need to do it now while we can influence the debate. The media is very resistant to letting people know these facts. I don't normally ask you for this help. I can put in the hours, but we need your support to get people to learn about what we do.
If you have any friends who you think might find our emails of interest, please encourage them to sign up by sending them the link here.
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Debate
Gun Ownership on Trial: John Lott’s Presentation at FreedomFest’s Mock Trial
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Op-eds
At Townhall: Kamala Harris’s Poorly Thought Out Gun Control Proposals
At the New York Daily News: Twitter’s debate-chilling problem: The social media site’s arbitrary policies allow foreign nations to censor American — often without explanation
At the Daily Caller: Here’s Why A Universal Background Check Law Would Be Bad
At National Review: ‘Red Flag’ Laws Are the Wrong Solution to Mass Shootings
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Television/Video interviews
On One America News’ The Daily Ledger: About Background Checks on the Private Transfers of guns
On NewsMax’s America Talks Live: What gun control laws will get passed in Washington? Are Background Checks really costless?
On Sinclair Broadcasting’s America This Week: Panel on Guns in America
On Canadian CTV: The very initial news coverage of the El Paso Mass Public Shooting
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Radio interviews/Podcasts
Highly Recommended: On Greg Gutfeld’s Podcast: Politics of Gun Control with John R. Lott Jr.
On the Lars Larson Show: Talking about the Gilroy and Virginia Beach shootings and the danger of gun-free zones
On the Buck Sexton Show: How the attacks have been politicized and what can be done to stop further attacks
On Sebastian Gorka’s Radio Show: Discussing say they are the ones who care about stopping these attacks and yet propose regulations that have nothing to do with them
On Blunt Force Truth: The Truth About Guns
On DC’s WMAL to discuss the push for a national Red Flag Law, how is it that Democrats can claim they care when the laws they propose won’t help?
Talking to Jim Bohannon on America in the Morning about the new push for gun control laws
On Armed American Radio: Covering everything from Gun-free zones to Universal Background Checks to Red Flag Laws to Open Carry
On Chicago’s WIND Morning Answer: Everyone wants to do something about the mass public shootings, but what makes sense?
On the Joe Pags Show: About all the misinformation that is put out on guns and gun control
On Toronto’s Global News Radio 640: Talking about gun control in the United States and Canada
On the UK’s TalkRadio about “what is America’s problem with mass shootings”
On the 50,000 watt WCMB’s The Morning Show with Sean & Frank to discuss this past weekend’s mass shootings
On Washington Times’ Mack On Politics to discuss expanded background checks, Assault Weapons Bans, and Red Flag laws
On the Michigan Talk Network with Steve Gruber about the El Paso and Dayton Attacks
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Media Bias on Guns
Media Bias on Guns: CBS’ Elementary on not liking guns, how the mere presence of guns lead to violence, to the benefits of gun buybacks
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Media Coverage
Crime Prevention Research Center in the News: Newsweek, PBS News Hour, San Jose Mercury News, Los Angeles Daily News, Orange County Register, and much more
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Other News
Man stops what deputies said would otherwise have likely been a mass public shooting
Concealed handgun permit holder in DC shoots robber
This week the CPRC has the third most downloaded academic paper at the Social Science Research Network
Some quick comments on Senator Elizabeth Warren’s bizarre claim that she will “Reduce Gun Deaths By 80%”
Handgun Carry Permit Holder stops threat suspect at Missouri Walmart
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John R. Lott, Jr.
President
Crime Prevention Research Center
http://crimeresearch.org
Email From Dr. Lott
Moderators: carlson1, Charles L. Cotton
Email From Dr. Lott
Email from Dr. Lott.
