[Sungun09]

The article is by John Lott and Fox news is running it.



http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,120638,00.html

[Foe[H]ammer]

Fox doesn't count they have been typically on the right side of most things .... CNN would be post worthy though.

[Sungun09]

In my glee I didn't read the byline... sorry.

[Foe[H]ammer]

oi! those are []'s not <>'s .... sheese j/k:p

[agricola]

Cime did not fall in England after handguns were banned in January 1997. Quite the contrary, crime rose sharply. Yet, serious violent crime rates from 1997 to 2002 averaged 29 percent higher than 1996; robbery was 24 percent higher; murders 27 percent higher. Before the law, armed robberies had fallen by 50 percent from 1993 to 1997, but as soon as handguns were banned, the robbery rate shot back up, almost back to their 1993 levels.

yet more easily disproveable nonsense

[toro]

Thank You for providing the article by John Lott, Jr. . Interesting article and it shows how things have changed since President Bush took office. Anther reason to vote for Bush. If you remember the ani-gun people were very strong when Clinton was president.

I just love Fox News, I can only stand to watch CNN about five Minutes if that long.


Mrs. Toro


Mark 14:32,34
And they came to a place which was named Gethsemane: and he said to his disciples, Sit ye here, while I shall pray. And he taketh with him Peter and James and John and began to be sore amazed, and to be very heavy; And saith unto them, My soul is exceeding sorrowful unto death: tarry ye here and watch.

[SAG0282]

I love it! :)

[Zan]

Foe[H]ammer Fox doesn't count they have been typically on the right side of most things .... CNN would be post worthy though.

toro I just love Fox News, I can only stand to watch CNN about five Minutes if that long.


I'll have to agree with Foe, Fox is a bias news network. CNN seems to give both sides of this issue consistantly and fairly. I guess it depends on what you want to hear and what the truth is.

agricola, I checked into those statistics myself and found them not to be accurate. I dunno where he got his info from. I agree though, the anti-gun movement is dieing.

[agricola]

zan,

and thats the thing - as Jim March has been finding out, John Lott is nothing more than a charlatan, and (i have said this before but it bears repeating) a Bellisiles of the right - but one who continues to find paid employment in repeating his fibs.

[kingfisher]

Zan

CNN seems to give both sides of this issue consistantly and fairly

What have you been smoking?

[kingfisher]

Zan

CNN seems to give both sides of this issue consistantly and fairly

What have you been smoking?

[walker37]

CNN consistant and fair? LOL You better start checking the facts against what CNN is saying. You will find they don't always agree, especially when it comes to firearms. At best you will see a huge bias AGAINST guns, if not an outright lie. Remember the fiasco they showed with the lying piece of crap Broward County Sheriff?

As far as FOX goes, they are no better. Ask O'Reilly to define an assault weapon and he will include bazookas in the hands of civilians as a reason to extend the AWB. And his show is supposed to be the "no spin zone". Yeah right!

[Daniel T]

agricola:

yet more easily disproveable nonsense

Could be. Go ahead and disprove it then, don't just say it.

[agricola]

daniel,

this has been done many times; briefly:

i) Cime did not fall in England after handguns were banned in January 1997.

Firstly, it was never expected to. Secondly handguns were not banned in January 1997 - some were moved from s1 to s5 classification, with those of .22 calibre and below being moved later.

ii) Yet, serious violent crime rates from 1997 to 2002 averaged 29 percent higher than 1996; robbery was 24 percent higher; murders 27 percent higher.

Lott ignores a number of factors here - with regards to "violent crime", there were a number of changes in the way the offences were counted that had the effect of boosting the number of crimes recorded (thus resulting in a rise). Robbery figures have been effected by the increased use of mobile phones (and, more importantly, the position taken by insurance companies who will only issue a new handset if the old phone was stolen), as well as the switch in policing priorities post 9/11 (which is why Lott ends his comparison in that year).

This, and (iii) below also allude to the rest of the article - that, when guns are banned, crime rises. In the UK at least there is no link - as no less a person than Colin Greenwood found (who has a far greater understanding than Lott)

iii) Before the law, armed robberies had fallen by 50 percent from 1993 to 1997, but as soon as handguns were banned, the robbery rate shot back up, almost back to their 1993 levels.

[M1911Owner]

So, the actual adding up of each and every violent crime by the police isn't accurate, but a random survey is??? :rolleyes:

(I'm commenting here on Agricola's link, which purports that we should believe a random survey, and disbelieve the actual police reports.)

[fallingblock]

and Tim's fanatical dislike of John Lott.;)

I contacted John Lott a while back and asked him for the details of his discussions with Tim Lambert.

According to Lott, he has offered several times to provide data for Tim and Lambert does not reply.

My opinion is that Tim Lambert is yet another anti-gun Australian of the academic elite - the sort who seem to drive so much of the riduculous firearms legislation here in Australia.

Perhaps Tim wishes to make a name for himself in a field where Lott has achieved well-deserved fame, and push his own anti-gun sentiment as well. :scrutiny:

Visit Tim's website and compare his demeanor and approach with Lott's.

http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/

[agricola]

fallingblock,

would you like to email Lott again, and then we can obtain this data and compare it with Lambert's? that seems the best way of dealing with it.

though given Jim March's recent problems with him, i doubt that he will.

[DigMe]

For anyone that's interested, here's an essay about the crime problems in countries that pass strict gun laws. IN the interest of full disclosure the author does cite two Lott works as references but he has many other references besides those.

http://www.fraserinstitute.ca/admin/books/files/FailedExperiment.pdf

brad cook

[Newton]

It never ceases to amaze me how often this garbage about banning handguns is linked to some mythical increase in crime, so as to justify the insane notion that the UK would somehow be safer if it was flooded with handguns.

Once again for the record:

The number of handguns in private ownership in the UK was statistically insignificant, people in the UK just didn't like them.

They was no documented use of a handgun to prevent a crime (in living memory).

There was evidence to show that the ownership of firearms in the UK INCREASED the likelihood of you being burgled, because criminals wanted the guns. Farmhouses were, and are, frequently targetted because you are guaranteed to find a shotgun on the premises.

Linking crime figures to handgun ownership in the UK is akin to linking peanut sales with choking incidents.

[fallingblock]

Although I've already received an email from Tim asking to see my email from John, and direct to my email address at that, not through THR.:(

Methinks there is an awful lot of personal animosity involved here, perhaps on both sides.

I've sent an email to Lott, so we'll have to see if he replies.

It's not good tactics to be between the hammer and the anvil.:uhoh:


Newton:
************************************************************
"It never ceases to amaze me how often this garbage about banning handguns is linked to some mythical increase in crime, so as to justify the insane notion that the UK would somehow be safer if it was flooded with handguns."
************************************************************

While I agree with your premise that from the mid-1920's onward the use of handguns for defence in Britain was negligible compared to what is experienced in the U.S.A., there is no arguing with the fact that until the early '20's it was not difficult to obtain handguns in Britain, and there was no significant criminal misuse of them while armed subjects did in fact defend themselves from criminals from time to time.

I think the significant message the pro-gun folks are trying to convey, in a somewhat misguided sense, perhaps, is that the BANNING of handguns has not resulted in a drop in their criminal misuse.



************************************************************
"There was evidence to show that the ownership of firearms in the UK INCREASED the likelihood of you being burgled, because criminals wanted the guns. Farmhouses were, and are, frequently targetted because you are guaranteed to find a shotgun on the premises."
************************************************************


The tradgedy being the reluctance of the householder to be behind that shotgun at the time. In the U.S. there is plentiful evidence to support the notion that criminals are indeed more afraid of an armed householder than police.


************************************************************
"Linking crime figures to handgun ownership in the UK is akin to linking peanut sales with choking incidents."
************************************************************


Actually, the simile would be Britain banning peanuts and seeing chokings continue unabated. :D

[Jim March]

Let's clarify something here.

I disagree with Lott on the electronic voting issue. He hasn't researched it much, never claimed to have done so to anywhere near the degree he did with CCW, and he has the typical academic's disdain for non-academic research by people like myself, Bev Harris, etc.

I didn't call him a fraud and Agricola is grossly overstating my opinions.

Then again, he grossly overstates a lot of things.

[Oleg Volk]

This discussion will continue without personal jabs, right? ;)

[gyp_c2]

Good one, I was pleased to see it...I noticed it when it came out but I'm glad you put it up...Just shows to go ya', you never know WHAT they'e gonna' show anymore...http://www.stopstart.freeserve.co.uk/smilie/bandit.gif

[agricola]

Jim,

sorry, but where did I say that you called him a fraud? I said:

though given Jim March's recent problems with him, i doubt that he will.

you did email Lott about the inaccuracies in his article didnt you? and didnt he refuse to change them?

[twency]

agricola:
sorry, but where did I say that you called him a fraud?
as Jim March has been finding out, John Lott is nothing more than a charlatan

You didn't say Jim March called him a fraud, but you did say that Jim March has been finding him out to be a charlatan, a synonym for a fraud. In other words, you suggested Jim March had found him to be a fraud (although you didn't say Jim called him one). Jim was just clarifying his position.

As far as the topic of discussion, when I was in the U.K. in late April/early May, there was a BBC news report that violent crime generally was on the decline, but homicide was on the rise. Does that either prove or disprove the theory that banning private handgun ownership will result in a reduction in crime? I have no idea.

Don't forget, however, that even if violent crime is the same (or, perchance, even increases slightly) with private handgun ownership, nobody seriously suggests that violent crime can be anywhere close to eliminated by banning private handgun ownership. Violent crime will always exist. Shouldn't people have the right to defend themselves effectively?

-twency
[edited for spelling]

[TimLambert]

For the record, I have never received an email from Lott offering to provide data. In fact, the last email I had from him was in 1999. Lott has not replied to any of my emails asking him questions about his research.

[fallingblock]

I did not contact him at the time of my correspondence with Lott.
Perhaps that would have led to a more fruitful discussion of the issues.

Like all in the pro-RKBA community, I wish for Lott's data to stand on its own merits.

It would be most helpful if John would address the issue a bit more squarely.:confused:

[fallingblock]

Sorry folks.:(

I've had a few emails from John Lott and he quite correctly states that the data is all available at his website for anyone to view.

Dr. Lott remains quite open to any specific questions concerning his research and generously offered to answer any of my own.

He also maintains that Tim Lambert was among the first to receive the data when it became available.

I was hoping that we could encourage some sort of information exchange betweem Lambert and Lott here at THR, on neutral ground, so to speak.

I believe I'll step out of the middle now....OW!:eek:

[kingfisher]

I take exception to the portrail of CNN as unbiased sourced of firearms media.

[TimLambert]

fallingblock wrote:I've had a few emails from John Lott and he quite correctly states that the data is all available at his website for anyone to view.
Dr. Lott remains quite open to any specific questions concerning his research and generously offered to answer any of my own.
He also maintains that Tim Lambert was among the first to receive the data when it became available.
Earlier, you wrote:
According to Lott, he has offered several times to provide data for Tim and Lambert does not reply.
I suppose it is possible that you misunderstood him, but this always seems to happen with Lott -- his stories just keep changing. For another example see Lindgren's report (http://www.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/guns/lindgren.html#section4) .