Glenn Reynolds, “FROM THE CRIME PREVENTION RESEARCH CENTER: A Deep Dive into Cases Where Civilians Stopped Active Shooters. Did they accidentally shoot bystanders, get in the way of police, get their gun taken away, or create other problems? How does it compare to police who stopped these attacks?,” Instapundit, February 23, 2025. Comments on this post are available here.
John R. Lott, the President of the Crime Prevention Research Center, drives Democrats/socialists/communist (D/s/cs) crazy. He does it the old-fashioned way: he does factual, honest, reproducible research about crime, guns and related issues and provides his data sets and methodology on request. Anti-liberty/gun “researchers” like the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) don’t do that. . . .
The topic of that article was the FBI’s underreporting of crime, to the benefit of Democrat/socialist/communist (D/s/c) politicians and their narratives. If blue cities and states don’t report crime to the FBI, and the FBI doesn’t accurately compile and publish crime data, that allows D/s/cs to claim they’re tough on crime, setting the terms of political debate and keeping campaign and federal funds flowing.
But there’s another area of data collection and dissemination where the FBI has been deceiving the public, and Lott, once again, exposes their lies: . . .
Mike McDaniel, “Citizens stop armed attackers; the FBI lies,” American Thinker, February 26, 2025.
Cowboy State Daily’s Mark Heinz reports that Tuesday’s testimony regarding House Bill 172 included input from nationally-known gun rights author John Lott, whose work has been quoted and, according to him, misquoted by state lawmakers and members of the public for years in the divisive debate over conceal carry.
“We’re hearing a lot of impassioned testimony, both for it and against it. One notable thing that happened today is, if anybody’s ever heard of the book, ‘More Guns, Less Crime,’ it’s fairly well known. It’s written by John Lott… he actually appeared via zoom before the Senate Judiciary Committee and was saying, you know, I’m here to defend my reputation, because a lot of people have been slamming me during during the testimony. But like everybody else, he was given two minutes, a hard two minutes. I mean, they cut the guy off mid sentence… the bill did advance. It’s gone from a Senate committee, it passed the house, then it came into a Senate committee. Passed the Senate committee, so it’s moved to the Senate floor. So that’s one more step toward it hitting Governor Gordon’s desk.”
The committee agreed to an Amendment to HB 172, stating that 18-year-old students still enrolled in public schools would not be allowed to carry concealed firearms into their schools.
A report at Real Clear Investigations in October 2024 brought the controversy into sharper focus. Author-researcher John Lott, founder and head of the Montana-based Crime Prevention Research Center, wrote the RCI report, published while Joe Biden was still president and his administration was touting alleged declines in crime.
“Most crimes go unreported,” the RCI report said, “with only about 45% of violent crimes and 30% of property crimes brought to the police’s attention, according to the National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS). Since the FBI only tracks reported incidents and this gap is so large, researchers argue that when the media discusses crime rates based on FBI data, they should clarify that it reflects “reported” crime, not give the impression that total crime is changing.”
Later in his report, Lott noted, “While the FBI claims that serious violent crime has fallen by 5.8% since Biden took office, the NCVS numbers show that total violent crime has risen by 55.4%. Rapes are up by 42%, robbery by 63%, and aggravated assault by 55% during Biden’s term. Since the NCVS started, the largest previous increase over three years was 27% in 2006, so the increase under Biden was slightly more than twice as large.” . . .
When the data disagree, doubt erupts. In his October RCI report, Lott wrote, “Even as polls show that Americans are concerned about crime, the FBI and the media are making it difficult to see how crime rates have changed over the last few years. A Gallup survey late last year found that 92% of Republicans and 58% of Democrats thought crime was increasing. A February Rasmussen Reports survey found that, by a 4.7-to-1 margin, likely voters say violent crime in the U.S. is getting worse (61%), not better (13%). A Gallup poll found in March that “crime and violence” was Americans’ second biggest concern, after inflation. But the media and politicians used the inaccurate FBI data to try to convince people that they were wrong. . . .
Dave Workman, “Data Fiasco, Can We Believe Statistics?” Liberty Part Press, February 20, 2025.
The long-standing conflict over gun statistics endures as both proponents and opponents of gun control leverage data to support their arguments. In his book “Gun Control Myths,” John R. Lott Jr., a prominent figure in the gun research arena, challenges the narrative that increased gun ownership correlates with higher rates of violence, suggesting that other factors play a significant role in homicide rates.
For over twenty-five years, research has both fueled and complicated the debate, with studies producing conflicting conclusions about the impact of gun laws on crime. Lott’s latest analyses attempt to counter widely cited statistics, emphasizing how nuances such as suicides within gun death totals may skew public perception and proposed policy measures. As advocates on both sides prepare for a protracted disagreement over these critical statistics, the implications for future legislation remain significant.
Staff, “Ongoing Gun Statistics Debate Fuels Divide,”Gun News Daily, February 19, 2025.
Like permitted carry, permitless carry is intended not only for personal protection but to deter violent crime. Despite grim prognostications for states adopting it, a 2024 report by Carlisle Moody and John R. Lott concluded;
…“[Right to carry] states have experienced significantly lower murder rates than those states that did not adopt RTC laws …Constitutional carry states, allowing the concealed carrying of handguns with no permit requirements, have experienced even larger declines in murder rates.”
As Lott describes in More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws,#ad “shall-issue” concealed handgun permit laws deter violent criminals who, predictably, avoid armed victims. States with higher rates of concealed carry experience fewer murders, rapes, and aggravated assaults. . . .
Pauln Valone, “Constitutional Carry: Fact vs. Fiction,” Ammoland, March 4, 2025.
John Lott from the Crime Prevention Research Center has claimed that the exact opposite is true, and approximately 99% of firearm purchase denials are false positives, meaning good people are being denied their rights for no reason. . . .
Dan Wos, “Should the Firearm Background Check System be Abolished?” Ammoland, March 6, 2025.
According to the Crime Prevention Research Center, nearly 18% of Colorado residents aged 21 or older now hold a concealed carry permit—a significant portion of the population. This suggests that despite political and legislative challenges, many Coloradans continue to prioritize self-defense and their Second Amendment rights. . . .
Fully 29 states have already adopted constitutional carry, with none of its naysayers’ dire predictions coming true. In fact, the Crime Prevention Research Center finds a small but significant reduction in violent crime among states which adopt permitless carry. . . .
According to the Crime Prevention Research Center’s annual report on concealed carry, Florida is the leader among five states with more than 1 million active concealed carry licenses. There are at least 2.46 million Florida license holders, not all of them state residents. Thousands of non-residents have obtained Florida licenses over the years because they are recognized in a number of states. . . .
