More guns, less crime
by John R. Lott · first published 1998
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Does allowing people to own or carry guns deter violent crime? Or does it cause more citizens to harm each other? Wherever people happen to fall along the ideological spectrum, their answers are all too often founded upon mere impressionistic and anecdotal evidence. In this direct challenge to conventional wisdom, legal scholar John Lott presents the most rigorously comprehensive data analysis ever done on crime. In this provocative work he comes to a startling conclusion more guns mean less crime. In what may be his most controversial conclusion, Lott finds that mass public shootings, such a
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…and the State - West * The Machinery of Freedom - Friedman * Against Intellectual Monopoly - Boldrine & Levine * From Mutual Aid to the Welfare State - Beito * The Not So Wild, Wild West - Hill * More Guns, Less Crime - Lott * Race & Economics - Williams * Emancipating Slaves, Enslaving Free Men - Hummel
on “Ask HN: What did you purchase that measurably improved your quality of life?” ↗except for all of these demonstrable ways: http://www.amazon.com/More-Guns-Less-Crime-Understanding/dp/...
on “Intelligence Committee Leaders Release Discussion Draft of Encryption Bill” ↗At least one study purports to do exactly this. http://www.amazon.com/More-Guns-Less-Crime-Understanding/dp/... (I haven't read it myself, so I'm not endorsing it. It's not exactly uncontroversial.)
on “What if we tested laws before passing them?” ↗This is a fun read (I've stayed in Kennesaw for a while in 2000 and people told me about this law): http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/5c1b6a72-c5eb-11df-b53e-00144feab4... More generally, Lott's book "More Guns, Less Crime" is a study on the subject - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_Guns,_Less_Crime - though not without opposition.
on “Cops: We Need Rights More Than You, Citizen” ↗More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws by John R. Lott Jr. https://www.amazon.com/More-Guns-Less-Crime-Understanding/dp...
on “Gun deaths among US kids continue to rise; Southern states have worst rates” ↗…fraud in his studies and of not actually conducting a survey he claimed to have done, proven allegations of sockpuppeting ("Mary Rosh"), lack of corroboration of his claims by any other academics... More Guns Less Crime is a snappy title, but mostly seems like a work of ideological pro-firearm propaganda in light of its author's many documented ethical issues.
on “This Guy Has My MacBook” ↗The other side: More Guns, Less Crime - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/More_Guns,_Less_Crime
on “Scientific American’s gun error” ↗…to act like a politically correct western guy. But it's fun to comment on those details, politics and all; they don't subtract from the work. And yes, there are non-fiction books, like the Bible and "More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws", but those can also be approached with a dose of lightheartedness. [^1] The Terraformers, By Annalee Newitz. Go, buy it, read it. It has real science in it,…
on “Feedback Is Rarely a Gift” ↗