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Fast Money & Foreign Objects
The NRA’s Favorite Gun “Academic” Is A Fraud
The journalistic quest for neutrality has led to a sacrifice of intellectual integrity.
CREDIT: AL JAZEERA, THINKPROGRESS
By Devin Hughes and Evan DeFilippis
The United States seems to be in a perpetual cycle mourning mass shootings in the country. This year alone, there have already been 233 mass shootings, where four or more victims were shot, leaving 310 dead and 930 injured. But every time another shooting happens, advocates pop up arguing that more guns don’t actually lead to more violence and stall the much-needed conversation about gun control.
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 bookThe 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 aNational Research Council panel, but he had also been caught pushing studies with severe statistical errors on numerous occasions. Aninvestigation 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.
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.
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:
CREDIT: SHUTTERSTOCK, THINKPROGRESS/ADRIENNE MAHSA VARKIANI
Last fall, Lott’s website proudly declared it published a study in a peer-reviewed journal. “CPRC Has New Refereed Publication in Econ Journal Watch: Explaining a Bias in Recent Studies on Right-to-Carry Laws” blared the headline on his website. A link to a downloadable copy of the paper also touts its place in the economic journal.
Having a study accepted in a peer-reviewed journal was a big win for Lott, boosting both his own reputation and that of the CPRC. After all, this would be one of the few publications in recent history that Lott dared subject to peer-review.
The only problem? The paper was never actually published in the Econ Journal Watch.
As the head editor of the journal explained to us, while Lott’s paper had initially been considered for publication, it was ultimately rejected. The issue of the journal Lott said he was published has no trace of his paper. It is impossible for Lott to have not known his paper was in fact rejected, and it would have taken little effort to correct both the post on the CPRC website and the uploaded paper on SSRN. This is a clear cut case of fraud.
CREDIT: SHUTTERSTOCK, THINKPROGRESS/ADRIENNE MAHSA VARKIANI
Lott often claims that there is no difference between the frequency of public shootings in Europe and the United States. This is unabashedly false — but he continues to spread the falsehood anyway.
In February, he made the claim before the Tennessee Senate. “Most people may not realize this, but the rate of mass public shootings in Europe is actually fairly similar to the rate in the United States,” he said. “There is no statistically significant difference there, either in terms of the rate or fatalities.”
A couple of months earlier, he said something similar to the Washington Post, which quickly highlighted that his analysis was quite different from that of other experts in the field. As the Post noted, while Lott said the per capita rates of mass shootings in Europe and the United States were approximately the same, another researcher found the U.S. rate to be five times higher. The Post explained that the gulf between the results was due to Lott and the other researcher using different definitions.
But there is an even simpler explanation for the differing conclusions: Lott wasn’t being honest about his own findings.
While Lott claims the per capita rate in the United States and Europe are approximately the same, his own data tables tell a different story. Accepting his data at face value, between 2009 and 2015, the United States had 25 mass shootings versus 19 in the E.U. and 24 in Europe as a whole. This comes out as a rate of .078 shootings per million individuals in the United States, .038 for the E.U., and .032 for Europe as a whole. The United States has more than double the mass shooting rate of the E.U. and Europe, directly contradicting Lott’s statements about his own data.
Further, Lott’s carefully crafted criteria to include an incident as a mass shooting is highly suspect. Lott goes to great lengths to exclude mass shootings that are the result of burglaries and gang violence, but he includes terrorist attacks. This choice means that while the Texas biker gang gunfightlast summer is excluded in his statistics, the November Paris attacks, which accounted for more than one-third of Europe’s mass shooting fatalities, are included.
However, when scholars study these mass shootings, they frequently exclude terrorist attacks from the analysis, for much the same reason Lott excludes burglaries and gang violence: the motivations are different. When researchers use a more appropriate set of criteria, the chasm between the rate of mass shootings in Europe and the United States widens even further. Researchers can also include all incidents of mass shootings (regardless of motivation) or use complex statistical analysis to determine whether the mass shooting difference between the United States and Europe is significant. The result remains the same — the United States fares far worse.
All of these methods point to the same conclusion: even if Lott wasn’t lying about his own results, his analysis would still be deeply flawed.
The NRA’s Favorite Gun “Academic” Is A Fraud — ThinkProgress
continued in link
The journalistic quest for neutrality has led to a sacrifice of intellectual integrity.
CREDIT: AL JAZEERA, THINKPROGRESS
By Devin Hughes and Evan DeFilippis
The United States seems to be in a perpetual cycle mourning mass shootings in the country. This year alone, there have already been 233 mass shootings, where four or more victims were shot, leaving 310 dead and 930 injured. But every time another shooting happens, advocates pop up arguing that more guns don’t actually lead to more violence and stall the much-needed conversation about gun control.
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 bookThe 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 aNational Research Council panel, but he had also been caught pushing studies with severe statistical errors on numerous occasions. Aninvestigation 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.
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.
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:
CREDIT: SHUTTERSTOCK, THINKPROGRESS/ADRIENNE MAHSA VARKIANI
Last fall, Lott’s website proudly declared it published a study in a peer-reviewed journal. “CPRC Has New Refereed Publication in Econ Journal Watch: Explaining a Bias in Recent Studies on Right-to-Carry Laws” blared the headline on his website. A link to a downloadable copy of the paper also touts its place in the economic journal.
Having a study accepted in a peer-reviewed journal was a big win for Lott, boosting both his own reputation and that of the CPRC. After all, this would be one of the few publications in recent history that Lott dared subject to peer-review.
The only problem? The paper was never actually published in the Econ Journal Watch.
As the head editor of the journal explained to us, while Lott’s paper had initially been considered for publication, it was ultimately rejected. The issue of the journal Lott said he was published has no trace of his paper. It is impossible for Lott to have not known his paper was in fact rejected, and it would have taken little effort to correct both the post on the CPRC website and the uploaded paper on SSRN. This is a clear cut case of fraud.
CREDIT: SHUTTERSTOCK, THINKPROGRESS/ADRIENNE MAHSA VARKIANI
Lott often claims that there is no difference between the frequency of public shootings in Europe and the United States. This is unabashedly false — but he continues to spread the falsehood anyway.
In February, he made the claim before the Tennessee Senate. “Most people may not realize this, but the rate of mass public shootings in Europe is actually fairly similar to the rate in the United States,” he said. “There is no statistically significant difference there, either in terms of the rate or fatalities.”
A couple of months earlier, he said something similar to the Washington Post, which quickly highlighted that his analysis was quite different from that of other experts in the field. As the Post noted, while Lott said the per capita rates of mass shootings in Europe and the United States were approximately the same, another researcher found the U.S. rate to be five times higher. The Post explained that the gulf between the results was due to Lott and the other researcher using different definitions.
But there is an even simpler explanation for the differing conclusions: Lott wasn’t being honest about his own findings.
While Lott claims the per capita rate in the United States and Europe are approximately the same, his own data tables tell a different story. Accepting his data at face value, between 2009 and 2015, the United States had 25 mass shootings versus 19 in the E.U. and 24 in Europe as a whole. This comes out as a rate of .078 shootings per million individuals in the United States, .038 for the E.U., and .032 for Europe as a whole. The United States has more than double the mass shooting rate of the E.U. and Europe, directly contradicting Lott’s statements about his own data.
Further, Lott’s carefully crafted criteria to include an incident as a mass shooting is highly suspect. Lott goes to great lengths to exclude mass shootings that are the result of burglaries and gang violence, but he includes terrorist attacks. This choice means that while the Texas biker gang gunfightlast summer is excluded in his statistics, the November Paris attacks, which accounted for more than one-third of Europe’s mass shooting fatalities, are included.
However, when scholars study these mass shootings, they frequently exclude terrorist attacks from the analysis, for much the same reason Lott excludes burglaries and gang violence: the motivations are different. When researchers use a more appropriate set of criteria, the chasm between the rate of mass shootings in Europe and the United States widens even further. Researchers can also include all incidents of mass shootings (regardless of motivation) or use complex statistical analysis to determine whether the mass shooting difference between the United States and Europe is significant. The result remains the same — the United States fares far worse.
All of these methods point to the same conclusion: even if Lott wasn’t lying about his own results, his analysis would still be deeply flawed.
The NRA’s Favorite Gun “Academic” Is A Fraud — ThinkProgress
continued in link
