Quote of the day—John R. Lott Jr.

The only “evidence” that “screening works” comes from their claim that, in 2008, 1.5 percent of those having a Brady background check were denied from purchasing a gun. What the authors likely are aware of, though they do not tell the readers, is that virtually all these cases represent so-called “false-positives”: In 2006 and 2007 (the latest data years available), a tiny fraction — just 2 percent of those 1.5 percent — involved possible unlawful possession; just 0.2 percent of the 1.5 percent were viewed as prosecutable — 174 cases in 2006 and 122 in 2007. At least a third of the remaining cases didn’t result in convictions. These are the types of errors that an academic journal shouldn’t let in, but if it does, they should fix it. But it is my understanding that the journal has refused to publish a clarification of these numbers.

Eventually even the subscribers to the New England Journal of Medicine will learn about these facts. Just look at the changes in the climate debate — not even the most prestigious places can get away with biased research for too long.

John R. Lott Jr.
October 18, 2010
Medical Journal Bias on Guns
[Via Phil.

As I have said before people can appear to be normal functional members of society yet have severe mental defects. Just as people at the Brady Campaign can’t seem to distinguish between a hypothesis and a conclusion some of the “researchers” published in the New England Journal of Medicine have the same problem or are deliberately publishing bad papers. In either case they deserve to have their credentials pulled.—Joe]

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3 thoughts on “Quote of the day—John R. Lott Jr.

  1. I have to wonder how John Lott is accounting for people like the guy who wanted to shoot up the Pentagon last year. He was denied a gun in California because of mental issues. He was not a felon. He went over to Nevada and bought a couple of guns via the “private sale”/gun show loophole.

    He was killed outside the Pentagon.

    So where does he fit in in the John Lott data files?

    What about people with domestic abuse restraining orders?

    “Unlawful possession” and “prosecutable” to me signifies felons only.

  2. You are mistaken. “Unlawful possession” and “prosecutable” includes those categories unless “mental issues” means “legally insane” and hence ineligible for prosecution.

    If you are not eligible to own a firearm it is illegal for you to attempt to purchase one.

  3. Despite the myriad of labels applied under the umbrella of process crimes, the aforementioned (and failed) mass murderer still attempted his crime, where the situation was mitigated by armed resistance at the very moment his intentions were evident. One may conclude that someone contemplating murder is unconcerned with violating a few lesser contraband rules along the way. Sadly, the mitigation option is only available to the “public sector” on Planet DC, so I guess it’s safe to say that “public safety” really means “public sector safety”. I guess one tax cow is the same as the next, so another comes along to take the place of a slaughtered one–and hey, there’s a death tax to profit from the event.

    What is it going to take to divorce social engineers from the fantasy that human nature immediately changes with the passage of legislation? The only thing that really changes is buying power, on account of the expense of carefully tracking paperwork regarding subjects that are currently on the other side of the country attempting murder.

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