More Guns Less Crime by John Jr (ebook reader macos .txt) 📗

circulate studies to groups on both sides of the gun debate. Few comments were offered privately, but once the paper began to receive national press coverage, the attacks came very quickly.

Before the press coverage started, it was extremely difficult to get even a proponent of gun control to provide critical comments on the paper when I presented it at the Cato Institute in early August 1996. I approached twenty-two pro-control people before Jens Ludwig, a young assistant professor at Georgetown University, accepted my request to comment on the paper.

One of the more interesting experiences occurred when I asked Susan Glick, of the Violence Policy Center, to participate. 1 Glick, whom I called during June 1996, was one of the last people that I approached. She was unwilling to comment on my talk at Cato because she didn't want to "help give any publicity to the paper." Glick said that her appearance might help bring media attention to the paper that it wouldn't otherwise have gotten. When I pointed out that C-SPAN was likely to cover the event, she said she didn't care because "we can get good media whenever we want." When I asked her if I could at least send her a copy of the paper because I would appreciate any comments that she might have, she said, "Forget it, there is no way that I am going to look at it. Don't send it." 2

However, when the publicity broke on the story with an article in USA Today on August 2, she was among the many people who left telephone messages immediately asking for a copy of the paper. In her case, the media were calling, and she "needfed] [my] paper to be able to criticize it." Because of all the commotion that day, I was unable to get back to

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her right away. ABC National Television News was doing a story on my study for that day, and when at around 3:00 p.m. the ABC reporter doing the story, Barry Serafin, called saying that certain objections had been raised about my paper, he mentioned that one of those who had criticized it was Ms. Glick. After talking to Mr. Serafin, I gave Glick a call to ask her if she still wanted a copy of my paper. She said that she wanted it sent to her right away and wondered if I could fax it to her. I then noted that her request seemed strange because I had just gotten off the telephone with Mr. Serafin at ABC News, who had told me that she had been very critical of the study, saying that it was "flawed." I asked how she could have said that there were flaws in the paper without even having looked at it yet. At that point Ms. Glick hung up the telephone. 3

Many of the attacks from groups like Handgun Control, Inc. and the Violence Policy Center focused on claims that my study had been paid for by gun manufacturers or that the Journal of Legal Studies was not a peer-reviewed journal and that I had chosen to publish the study in a "student-edited journal" to avoid the close scrutiny that such a review would provide. 4 These attacks were completely false, and I believe that those making the charges knew them to be false. At least they had been told by all the relevant parties here at the University of Chicago and at the Olin Foundation that the funding issues were false, and the questions about publishing in a "student-edited journal" or one that was not peer-reviewed were well known to be false because of the prominence of the journal. Some statements involved claims that my work was inferior to an earlier study by three criminologists at the University of Maryland who had examined five counties.

Other statements, like those in the Los Angeles Times, tried to discredit the scholarliness of the study by claiming that "in academic circles, meanwhile, scholars found it curious that he would publicize his findings before they were subjected to peer review." 5 In fact, the paper was reviewed and accepted months before media stories started discussing it in August 1996.

The attacks claiming that this work had been paid for by gun manufacturers have been unrelenting. Congressman Charles Schumer (D— N.Y.) wrote as follows in the Wall Street Journal: "I'd like to point out one other 'association.' The Associated Press reports that Prof. Lott's fellowship at the University of Chicago is funded by the Olin Foundation, which is 'associated with the Olin Corporation/ one of the nation's largest gun manufacturers. Maybe that's a coincidence, too. But it's also a fact." 6 Others were even more direct. In a letter that the Violence Policy Center mass-mailed to newspapers around the country, M. Kristen Rand, the Center's federal policy director, wrote,

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Lott's work was, in essence, funded by the firearms industry—the primary beneficiary of increased handgun sales. Lott is the John M. Olin fellow at the University of Chicago law school, a position founded by the Olin Foundation. The foundation was established by John Olin of the Olin Corp., manufacturer of Winchester ammunition and maker of the infamous "Black Talon" bullet. Lott's study of concealed handgun laws is the product of gun-industry funding.... (See, as one of many examples, "Gun Industry Paid," Omaha World Herald, March 10, 1997, p. 8.) 7

Dan Kotowski, executive director of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, said that "the study was biased because it was funded by the parent company of Winchester, Inc., a firearms manufacturer." 8 Kotowski is also quoted as saying that the claimed link between Winchester and my study's conclusions was "enough to call into question the study's legitimacy. It's more than a coincidence." 9 Similar claims have been made by employees of Handgun Control, Inc. and other gun-control organizations.

Indeed, gun-control groups that