On Thursday, the Arizona Daily Star published “Media determined to misrepresent Trump’s remarks” (no link), and the Arizona Daily Sun published News media’s interpretation of Trump’s remark is ridiculous by John Lott, the president of the Crime Prevention Research Center and the author of “The War on Guns,” attempting to defend Donald Trump’s statement:
“Hillary wants to abolish, essentially abolish, the Second Amendment. By the way, and if she gets to pick her judges, nothing you can do, folks. Although the Second Amendment people, maybe there is. I don’t know.”
What these newspapers failed to tell you is anything about the disreputable author.
Think Progress reports, The NRA’s Favorite Gun “Academic” Is A Fraud:
John Lott is, if not the most influential, certainly the most prolific “academic” in the gun debate. He has authored weekly columns in local newspapers on the horrors of gun free zones, published widely-distributed books on the ostensible benefits of right-to-carry laws, and his newest book The War on Guns has received rave reviews by prominent conservatives, like Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX), Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL), and Newt Gingrich.
Before Lott’s flurry of activity, it was difficult to find anybody arguing that widespread gun ownership made societies safer — even the NRA was reticent to make such a bold claim, defending gun ownership with reference to the constitution, not criminology.
But Lott’s recent successes belie a far more shadowy past. A little over a decade ago, he was disgraced and his career was in tatters. Not only was Lott’s assertion that more guns leads to more safety formally repudiated by a National Research Council panel, but he had also been caught pushing studies with severe statistical errors on numerous occasions. An investigation uncovered that he had almost certainly fabricated an entire survey on defensive gun use. And a blogger revealed that Mary Rosh, an online commentator claiming to be a former student of Lott’s who would frequently post about how amazing he was, was in fact John Lott himself. He was all but excommunicated from academia.
Just like our own sock puppet John Huppenthal aka Thucky!
Despite his ethical failings, Lott rose from the ashes in the wake of the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School to once more become a prominent voice in the gun debate.
Perhaps unaware of Lott’s previous transgressions, or believing he had turned a new page by founding the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC), many in the media who were desperate for an authoritative, pro-gun academic voice seized on Lott’s credentials and provided him with a new platform. In the past few years, Lott and his organization have been cited by dozens of media outlets as an authority on gun violence statistics, including the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, LA Times, Politifact, CBS, CNN, Fox News, and many others.
Including the Arizona Daily Star and Arizona Daily Sun.
However, the media’s newfound faith in John Lott is deeply misguided. Rather than turn a new page, Lott has instead returned to his old playbook and used his platform to deceive the public. Our own multi-year investigation into Lott and his organization has uncovered a startling array of new ethical violations, ranging from the profoundly bizarre to the outright fraudulent.
Here are just five of the most troubling incidents.
Continue reading The NRA’s Favorite Gun “Academic” Is A Fraud for all of the details.
I know that there is hardly anyone still working at the newspaper, and all too frequently the editors rely on submission pieces from right-wing think tanks and front groups for filler on their editorial page (the Arizona Daily Star rarely even publishes an editorial opinion by the editors any longer). But a simple Google search would have revealed much about John Lott. Show some initiative and effort will ya?
You guys are so full of horse hockey. Lotts research hzs been validated over and over again You hzve a problem. In 1992, tbere where over 14,000 murders. Today, with a population 70 million higher and much more ar-risk, there were less than 10,000 murders. Unless you live in a gunfree zone like Chicago. Lotts research enables us to understand why.
You all are forced to insist that down is up. League of morons. Just because you all say it doesnt make it true. You are still morons. No logic, no facts, just a sneer and a smear are yours tools of trade.
Oh, John…John “Master of SockPuppets” Huppenthal, the Interwebs own Falcon9, statements like this are the reason you have a reality TV star/con man/real estate agent running as your Presidential Candidate.
Own it. You created a world where a racist circus peanut is the leader of your party.
And here’s why I really, really dislike people like you… you created a world so full of lies that people like YOU are responsible for putting Hillary Wall Street Kissinger in the White House.
Because the 2016 GOP candidates for POTUS were so FREAKING bad that a creepy New York City con man won YOUR primary.
And you call other people morons?
Maybe you should just stop trolling the web and get a real job.
After our last dust up, I took the time to read both Lott’s latest edition of “More Guns, Less Crime” and the rebuttal book. A decade ago, I took in excess of 30 hours to go over in detail the statistical case against Lott.
So, this was a refresher course for me.
Your Stanford Law professor has a problem. He has never published a journal article subject to referee. You know, a statistical expert. Lott’s published articles are all refereed.
Lott has always released his data in advance of publication.
Your guy does not.
What Lott has done is put together the most sophisticated crime specification at the county level, going back decades. It is really an unbelievable statistical accomplishment. Olympic in nature.
Your Stanford Law professor has a problem with y=mx + b, which is likely why he doesn’t release his data. When you are up against the ultimate cage fighter, you have to go for the cheap shot.
Interestingly enough, in Lott’s data, is a distinctly liberal finding. He found that crime rates are not affected by the length of sentencing but are heavily affected by arrest rates. This has enormous policy implications.
Oh, and by the way, I am sitting this one out. As I’ve made clear before, I would never vote for Trump. The last time we put a hard charging businessman in the White House, he started a trade war which started the Great Depression. His name was Herbert Hoover.
Two years after he signed the Smoot Hawley tariff, GDP was 50% lower. Think things are bad now? They can get much worse. Much much worse.
I voted for Marco Rubio, even though he had already withdrawn. His name was still on the ballot.
You are missing the point. Trump is literally a con man, and he’s the nominee of your part, and it’s people like you who are to blame.
You repeat talking points without understanding what they mean, you use sock puppets to deceive people, you deny basic science.
Your comments on race show a lack of human decency.
You and your kind have created a party where the leader of your party is a Real Estate Agent and Reality TV star.
My proof that you don’t understand what you’re doing? You voted for Marco Rubio.
And you call everyone else morons and idiots.
Get a real job Falcon9.
Do you think about what you say? You are a sock puppet. An absolute sock puppet. Replying to a real person. Who are you really? What is your real name? What is your job?
I call you morons because I know that the sneer is your coin of trade. It’s important for you to feel intellectually superior. And you do feel, falsely intellectually superior.
I’ve put in enormous hours, thousands, digging deep to get to the bottom of controversies.
Look at death rates for 50 year olds. It’s bizzare. Your presidents policies are clearly killing people. First time in recorded history and totally unique to the United States and Caucasians. Don’t talk about republicans creating the environment that allowed trump to succeed, trump is the offspring of Obama.
Sad little Johnny, we’ve been through this before. From Wikipedia:
“A sockpuppet is an online identity used for purposes of deception. The term, a reference to the manipulation of a simple hand puppet made from a sock, originally referred to a false identity assumed by a member of an Internet community who spoke to, or about, themselves while pretending to be another person.”
See? That was you, sitting in your taxpayer funded office, using a taxpayer funded computer, and a taxpayer funded internet connection, using fake names to tell everyone how great John Huppenthal is, and how bad it is to speak Spanish and be Mexican.
I, on the other hand, am a private citizen, contributing to the lively discussion of current affairs, and not a public figure.
For example, I am not a corrupt, racist, lying politician using taxpayer funded systems to overcome some deep seated anxiety about my own self worth.
You are excellent at memorizing random factoids but you suffer from an lack of critical thinking skills and a more serious issue with self control.
You have earned my sneer, Falcon9, drink it in.
Signed,
Tom
John “The Dog Ate My Research” Lott, long ago discredited con man.
Maybe next they can publish some of David Barton’s fine work next.
Old media appeals to old people (I miss having a decent morning paper), so more and more papers, radio, and TV are trying to keep their views using the Fox News model.
Don’t offend old white racists.
speaking of frauds clinton campaign is getting liberal talk show hosts to stop ignoring jill stein and to start sliming her as she is taking away sanders voters after they read the e-mails. I thought tom hartmann was better then this.
How low do we have to go to find someone to defend Trump’s comments? Well, we don’t have to guess..cause the Star did it for us. John Lott- whose findings have been debunked and refuted by many. His organization, The Crime Prevention Research Center (a misleading name at best), publishes studies that are used frequently to assist the spread of misinformation on gun violence…this was my comment on tucson.com….and sadly, until now, no one else commented.
Thanks for your reporting on this!