Attack on CCW study by Lott on another forum

[Colin]

Having a discussion on Army.ca (Unoffical Canadian army website, US types are welcome by the way!) about gun control and CCW or ATC as we call it up here. One guy posted the quote below, anyone here have any good comments, links to studies to refute this? I pointed out that according to Wikpidy, Florida issued over 800,000 permits up to 2004, which makes the figures quoted here approx.
.125% of the total revoked, not bad considering. I know Lott hasn't been perfect but generally his work seems to have stood up and most critics will say that CCW neither helps nor hurts crime figures (I believe it helps) Any comments appreciated.

Here is he link to the discussion, not sure if guest can read it, the post is on p. 52 of the thread (yea we like to talk a lot.......)
"The Great gun debate"
http://forums.army.ca/forums/index.p...28692.765.html

First things first, CCW laws have not been proven to reduce crime, and the study done by John Lott who said that CCW reduces crime was shown to be flawed.


Quote
Large statistical studies have confirmed that CCWs most likely cause more — rather than less — crime. A recent exhaustive study by Professor John Donohue of Stanford University examined crime data across the country. The study refuted the research that the oft-quoted gun rights advocate John Lott claimed showed concealed handgun laws reduced crime. Lott’s findings — based on his 1997 survey — covered only a short period of time, during which urban crime was already rising, whereas Professor Donohue studied the longer impact of CCW laws.

Lott had erroneously concluded from his survey that concealed handguns deterred crime without being fired an astoundingly high 98% of the time. That claim allowed Lott to explain away the fact that extremely few people ever report using their handgun as a means of self-defense. Professor David Mustard, who co-authored Lott’s work, conceded that there were critical flaws in their study — flaws that seriously undermined their conclusions. Mustard was deposed under oath in the Ohio concealed-handgun case Klein v. Leis. Mustard admitted that the study “omitted variables.” This could explain that changes in crime rate are due to reasons other than changes in CCW laws. Mustard also admitted that the study did not account for many of the major factors he believes affect crime, including crack cocaine, wealth, drugs, alcohol use, and police practices such as community policing


Second, the CCW permits have been issued to individuals who are not fit to carry and have gone on to commit firearms offenses, as well as other crimes.


Quote
Restricting the issuance of concealed weapons permits makes sense, despite Mr. Rankin’s assertions to the contrary. Lax issuance policies end up putting CCW permits in the hands of criminals, potential criminals, or disturbed individuals. Under pressure from the NRA, many states have relaxed CCW laws, and the results have not been good. According to the Florida Department of State, Division of Licensing, from April 30, 1997 through January 30, 2000, 1,041 Florida CCW license-holders had their licenses revoked for committing crimes after receiving their licenses. Data from the Texas Department of Public Safety found that Texas CCW license-holders were arrested for a total of 3,370 crimes between January 1, 1996 and April 30, 2000, including some very serious violent offenses. Texas CCW permit holders were arrested for weapon-related offenses at a rate that was 66% higher than that of the general population of Texas. A Salt Lake Tribune article in April 2001 stated that “scores of Utahans are having their CCW licenses revoked for criminal violations — including felonies and firearms offenses,” since the state began running daily background checks on its CCW permit holders. In the first year of the daily checks, the state experienced a 241% increase in the number of revocations, with the single biggest reason for license revocations being the fact that the permit holder was wanted on an outstanding warrant.

Another popular notion is if one has a firearm in the house they are better able to protect themselves against criminals, this is false. Studies have shown that a firearm will not increase safety in the home, in fact it increases the chances one may have a family member use the gun against a fellow member or themselves. This was shown in a study by the American Medical Association. Having a firearm for personal protection is akin to wrapping oneself in bubble wrap to avoid possible injuries when encountering sharp corners.


Quote
The 22 million guns in America — in addition to new guns constantly being spewed into circulation and easily accessed — whether due to lax CCW issuance policies, or any other means, legal or illegal, constitute a major societal problem. In 2002, 30,242 people were killed by guns in America — 83 people a day — including 17,108 suicides, 11,829 homicides, and 762 unintentional or accidental shootings (Injury Mortality Reports, National Center for Injury Prevention and Control, Centers for Disease Control).

Yet the illusion persists that a gun kept in the home confers automatic protection. In fact, it is 22 times more likely to be used in an unintentional shooting, a criminal assault, or an attempted or actual suicide than to be used to injure or kill in self-defense (Kellerman, “Injuries and Deaths Due to Firearms in the Home,” Journal of Trauma, Infection, and Critical Care, August 1998). And when someone is home, a gun is used for protection in less than two percent of home invasion crimes (Kellerman, “Weapon Involvement in Home Invasion Crimes,” Journal of the American Medical Association, June 1995).


I am in favour of CCW, but only in cases when special circumstances are present. I actually agree with education on firearms in schools, and would support that, however I don't think their is much of a point to CCW laws similar to the states, and in the end it's a moot issue since very few Canadian's would ever support CCW.

[DefensiveCarry.com]

[SixBravo]

I only read the first part before I had to respond...

IIRC, Lott's study covered almost twenty years of crime stats. Now, I could be WAY off on that, but I'm pretty sure I remember reading that. It stuck out because he said that the only things that reduced crime at all were RTC laws, though the effect was small.

Check out GunCite or whatever that wbesite is. It has a LOT of Lott's stats and figures.

[HotGuns]

I know Lott hasn't been perfect but generally his work seems to have stood up and most critics will say that CCW neither helps nor hurts crime figures (I believe it helps) Any comments appreciated.

One thing that most people fail to mention is that Lott was at one time extremely anti-gun. Being a "facts" kinda guy,he also noted that most of the info provided was extremely poor and most of the so called "facts" used by anti-gunners just could not stand up under scrutiny.

It was his study of published information that actually led him to revise his thoughts and opinions on gun control.

He went from a noted and vocal anti-gun Professor to one that "saw the light" and did a complete turnaround on his stance. It was because he defected from the club of the anti gunners that he drew much criticism and hate and discontent.

They did everything they could to discredit him and his studies and used lies,slander and fabrications to try to dishonor him and refute him. Fact of the matter is, no one could do so.There were some so called discrepancies found initially, but it was eventually all were redeemed and no one could refute his findings.

Having exchanged several emails with him over the years, I have found him to be very direct and down to earth in his conversations. At least he had the courage to publicly change his mind and beliefs when he found out the truth and for that I give him much credit. He had withstood the onslaught of those that will not or cannot believe the truth and will stop at nothing to assassinate his character and has become a noted source for statistics, all of which prove that gun ownership by private individuals IS a deterrent to crime and the ability to defend ones life is indeed enhanced greatly by owning a firearm.

There are those that believe that self defense is not a valid reason to own a firearm. Some country's such as England, will spend more time ,effort and money on trying to prosecute someone that has the audacity to defend them-self with anything, than they will on the perpetrator of the crime. They refuse to see that outlawing ownership of firearms serves ONLY those that dont follow laws and use laws like that to their advantage.

Canada and Australia aren't much better. The government of Canada doesn't seem to trust it citizens with handguns, to the point that they wont even trust their police officers to take them home, requiring that they lock them up at the end of each shift.

As for the so called "studies", any person that has an iota of common sense will see that these "studies" only serve to further an agenda,an agenda that wants private ownership of guns outlawed. Is a pure coincidence that one of the stated goals of the United Nations is to outlaw guns?

Another popular notion is if one has a firearm in the house they are better able to protect themselves against criminals, this is false. Studies have shown that a firearm will not increase safety in the home, in fact it increases the chances one may have a family member use the gun against a fellow member or themselves. This was shown in a study by the American Medical Association. Having a firearm for personal protection is akin to wrapping oneself in bubble wrap to avoid possible injuries when encountering sharp corners.

Sure.
Thats why most gun owners have shot members of their family's either by accident or on purpose. Oh wait...that hasn't happened yet.

Using an extremely anti gun organization like the American Medical Association for data serves well to show the bias in this article. Since the AMA uses only the statics which it gathers from hospitals it would stand to reason that every single case which involves a gun shot victim would serve to indicate that every person that they encounter has had a negative experience with guns, or they wouldn't be in the ER seeking treatment and adding to the AMA statistics.

I am in favor of CCW, but only in cases when special circumstances are present. I actually agree with education on firearms in schools, and would support that, however I don't think their is much of a point to CCW laws similar to the states, and in the end it's a moot issue since very few Canadians would ever support CCW.

I too am in favor of CCW, enough so that I teach the required classes for the issuance of the permit. As for "special cases" I personally believe that any American citizen that is willing to accept responsibility for the defense of them self and family is a "special case",because unlike most of the population they realize that the state is NOT responsible for their well being.

We'll leave the state protection to country's like Canada, Great Britain, Australia, China, Russia, Iraq, Somalia, Rwanda, South Africa, Sudan, Iran, Syria and Libya, because we all know how well THAT works.

[Janq]

Colin,

Send dude the following link...

Guns And Public Health: Epidemic Of Violence Or Pandemic Of Propaganda?
http://www.constitution.org/2ll/2ndschol/58tenn.pdf

The above should shut him down handily.

- Janq

[peacefuljeffrey]

The claim about how guns in the home increase danger is bunk. This guy doesn't even correctly cite where that "study" came from.

It's the famous one by Dr. Arthur Kellerman, which was conducted with money from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). It was so blatantly flawed that in response to it, the CDC's budget was subsequently punitively cut by congress by $6MILLION -- the amount wasted on the study.

Kellerman came out with that hogwash about how a gun in the home is "43 times more likely" to be used to harm a loved one than to kill an intruder. This was presumably an argument to demonstrate that the benefit of having a gun is just not great enough to justify the so-called danger. But Kellerman's big scam was to compare any shooting of a loved one with KILLING an invader. He simply did not grant that there was self-defense utility in any case in which an intruder was shot but not killed, or was shot at but missed and he ran away, or was shown a gun that was not fired and he ran away. The only good defensive use of a gun, according to Kellerman's study, would be if the intruder was killed with the homeowner's gun.

Kellerman's garbage belongs on the trash heap with the idea that "15 'children' a day are killed by guns" when "children" are considered to be up to 25 years old in order to come up with a number that high.

People are still quoting Kellerman's crap even though it's been years since it was thoroughly debunked. I'm sure that if you google "kellerman gun" you will get a litany of sites that destroy his attempt to defraud academia and the public.

[peacefuljeffrey]

The idea that there are over 80,000,000 gun owners and they collectively own over a quarter of a billion guns in the United States, yet each year ALL gun deaths combined (accident, suicide, homicide both justifiable and criminal) is 30,000 should go a lonnnng way toward showing just how pathetic it is to try to claim that guns are just tragedy waiting to happen.

Do the math. Even if every single gun death involved a separate gun, divide 30,000 guns over 250,000,000. You get 0.00012, or 12 thousandths of one percent of all U.S. guns used in deaths in this country. In a decade, that would mean that just over a mere 1/10th of one percent of guns were used to kill someone.

This is the cause of anti-gun hysteria?

[SammyIamToday]

The idea that there are over 80,000,000 gun owners and they collectively own over a quarter of a billion guns in the United States, yet each year ALL gun deaths combined (accident, suicide, homicide both justifiable and criminal) is 30,000 should go a lonnnng way toward showing just how pathetic it is to try to claim that guns are just tragedy waiting to happen.

Do the math. Even if every single gun death involved a separate gun, divide 30,000 guns over 250,000,000. You get 0.00012, or 12 thousandths of one percent of all U.S. guns used in deaths in this country. In a decade, that would mean that just over a mere 1/10th of one percent of guns were used to kill someone.

This is the cause of anti-gun hysteria?

You could probably throw in there somewhere that almost all gun crimes are committed with illegaly owned firearms as well.

[Miggy]

The claim about how guns in the home increase danger is bunk. This guy doesn't even correctly cite where that "study" came from.

It's the famous one by Dr. Arthur Kellerman, which was conducted with money from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). It was so blatantly flawed that in response to it, the CDC's budget was subsequently punitively cut by congress by $6MILLION -- the amount wasted on the study.

The Kellerman Study IIRC was done over a period of 6 months in one of the most crime-ridden neighborhoods he could find. That on itself skewed any results. He also did not make a comparison between legally owned firearms v. Illegally owned firearms (which were the grunt of his study but did not mention clearly. And, to top the cake with a cherry, when the raw data & methods were requested for Peer Review, Kellerman refused to release them.

Lott's initial findings were over a period of 10 years and included a multitude of counties in States with CCW at the time. His findings were submitted for peer review and, with the exception of a couple of ideologues that popooed the study (One didn't even read the book or the data and admitted to it) nobody could fault the research. Not only Lott did that 10 year study, but kept adding and researching at it as more states passed pro CCW laws.
And you want to know why Lott's study is good? Most Anti-Gunners avoid mentioning it at all. It is not that the Brady Bunch tries to say it is flawed or unimportant, they pretend it does not exist becuase it hurts them badly.

Offer this idiot a copy of Lott's book and ask him to read it before anything else.

[SIGguy229]

Lott's information for his book More Guns, Less Crime (1998) comes from "FBI yearly crime rate data for all 3,054 counties from 1977 to 1992...[he also uses] more recently available [sic] data for 1993 and 1994 to check [his] results" (p. 19).

So, instead of using aggregate state data (which be be skewed--i.e. Chicago, IL vs Pocahontas, IL)--he goes down to the quite literal "brass tacks".

Lott, J.R. (1998). More Guns, Less Crime. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

[BAC]

More Guns, Less Crime is a great book if you can keep your eyes open through it. I consider myself pretty good at research and statistical analysis but that is a DRY read.


-B

[sgtD]

I just want to chime in to say that, having a recently aquired educational background in the scientific field (ecology, and environmental studies in my case) I can say that most statistical analysis can be refuted by anyone willing to take the time to find the flaws in them or question the assumptions and premisis used. Statistics are often reported as fact, when they are only really tools used to infer what might be true within a certain confidence interval assuming that the data and methods are sufficient.

John Lotts analysis was as good as anyones IMO, but there will always be flaws in analysis that can be pointed out. Also, someone else can usually always do analysis using different premise, assumptions, or calculations that can make the previous analysis look flawed, becuase there are flaws in all statisitcs.

Statistics are not facts and are used to make generalizations and sometimes predictions. They are incapable of guaranteeing results or being without flaw because no super computer in the world is capable of factoring in every possible variable which may ultimately effect the outcome of actual future events, or in this case, variables which effected past events.

That being said, following along with HotGuns statements, in Lotts original work he expected an anti gun outcome, but the data was so glaringly opposed to his original assumption that he was forced to change sides and, I believe, accept the null hypothesis. (which is a whole other discussion)

That tells me that he was looking for the truth and not promoting an agenda at the time he did his work, therefore I will believe his analysis to be more trustworthy than the analysis of someone who has a predetermined agenda and is willing to tweak the inputs or analysis to get a desired result.

John Lott = good researcher, good mathmatician, terrible writer. His book was awful. He should have sought a co-author with some writing ability to make it readable or at least bearable. I read it and have it on the shelf for reference, but hope I never have to read it again. BOORRIINNGG!

[goawayfarm]

Studies or analysis aren't really needed to prove that where people have firearms, crime is lower.

This is common sense for most but the dumbest (or psychotic) BGs. Why do you think the number of crimes are statistically ZERO in police stations or GUN SHOWS........simple answer, the BG knows there is a GOOD chance of NOT surviving an encounter with an ARMED populace. This is not rocket surgery or brain science.......just good old survival instinct.

[HotGuns]

. This is not rocket surgery or brain science.......

Aparently it IS for some people...

[sgtD]

Aparently it IS for some people...

I once knew a brain scienist, but have yet to meet a rocket surgeon.

[Colin]

Thanks guys I will use this stuff to chew into the guy's comments, never knew he started out as an anti, good ammo that is.