This is an interview that Dr. John Lott did while he was in Argentina.
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Renowned American economist John Lott granted us an exclusive interview after his presentation the previous day to a select group of attendees at a downtown hotel in Buenos Aires. This event was organized by the Argentine Federation of Legitimate Gun Users (FLUAA), which hosted the prominent security specialist.
For those unfamiliar with him, Dr. Lott is a professor with a Master’s degree in Economics from the United States, who is closely related to our gun environment through his influential studies on crime and armed defense among civilian and police users. His statistics confirm the need for those who are able and willing to legally arm themselves to do so as a means of improving their personal security. Below is an excerpt from the interview.
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Hernán Rodríguez: Are you committed to defending the rights to use and bear arms?
John Lott: No, I’m not involved with those rights. What I do is try to establish what makes people safer. And I came to this accidentally. I was teaching a class at the Wharton School of Business in Pennsylvania on corporate and white-collar crime, and I made the mistake of telling the students we were ahead of schedule. After class, a couple of them came up to me and said, “Well, as you know, we’re ahead of schedule and have extra time, and although it’s not exactly a topic on the syllabus, your presentation is related to crime. Would you be interested in giving a talk on gun control?” To which I replied, “Well, I guess I can.”
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Prior to this, Lott had done an in-depth study of crime, but he never found himself interested in guns. It was then that he began to look more deeply into the subject. That is, “I read some local newspapers,” he continues, “but I was shocked by how poorly all the research work that had been done was done. And if you’re an academic, you do research for one of two possible reasons: either you have a new idea that no one has had before, which constitutes 95% of what I’ve done; or you think you can do a better job than someone else has.”
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H.R.: Look… this is my last carry permit, already expired. In Argentina today, they are only issued to certain politicians and well-connected people (with the exception of some companies). It’s impossible for the average user to obtain one from them. What is your opinion on legitimate carry?
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J.L.: What my research indicates is that there are basically two groups of the population who would benefit most from having carry permits. First, poor minorities living in urban environments with high crime rates. Second, people who are physically weaker, such as women and the elderly. And you tell me it’s very difficult? The poor will never be able to carry a gun. Still, there’s a certain segment of society that benefits. Should I be happy that powerful, wealthy, and politically connected people can obtain these permits and get around? Yes, that’s fine, but they’re not the ones who face the most crime. And you know what? You look at crime rates in Argentina, and they’re a little lower than in the U.S. On the other hand, the robbery rate is simply incredible. I mean, according to the numbers I found, in your country it’s close to 1,068 per 100,000 inhabitants. And in the U.S., it’s 60 based on the same number of people. There, we have what we call the National Crime Victimization Statistics, which collects data on 240,000 people a year. So, we have an idea of the rate of crimes not reported to the police. In Argentina, they don’t have anything like that.
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H.R.: It’s just that not all victims report crimes…
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J.L.: Correct. One of the things you discover over time is that if people don’t believe crimes will be solved, they’re less likely to report them. And my guess is that your crime rate, the real one, is actually much higher than 1,068, which is staggering. I strongly suspect that if Argentina had a statistics service like ours, it would know that the number of unreported crimes would be even higher than in my country. And that the rate of property crime is very high throughout the country. We were driving around Buenos Aires and we saw bars even on apartment buildings. This is because homeowners fear criminals climbing through balconies. Well, all this can vary depending on whether people are allowed to own guns or not.
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H.R.: I agree. We often have bad officials who try to abolish gun ownership, not issue gun permits. When I had it, I was saved three times simply by drawing my weapon. The criminals fled, without any shots being fired.
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J.L.: Well, Americans solve 95% of attempted robberies in this defensive manner, by drawing their weapons. Look, criminals aren’t stupid, not that stupid. They don’t want to make the crime too difficult or risky for themselves. This is a basic point; it’s not rocket science. If you want to stop crime, you have to make it risky for the criminals. And you can do that with higher arrest rates, with harsher penalties, longer sentences, the death penalty, of course, and going to extremes. But you can also achieve it by making it possible for the victims of these crimes to defend themselves. That helps a lot and has been proven in many countries around the world.
