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John Lott Redux
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BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY
by David E. Kaun
William Simon’s A Time for Truth (1978) represented the conservative call to arms. Faced with the perceived "liberal dominance" of public life in the 60s and again with the election of Jimmy Carter, Simon sought, successfully, to alter the nation’s mind- set. In order to accomplish this task, he insisted on a three-pronged assault along the following lines:
"Funds generated by business...must rush by multimillions to the aid of liberty, in the many places where it is beleaguered....[such funds] must serve explicitly as intellectual refuges for the non-egalitarian scholars and writers in our society who today work largely alone in the face of overwhelming indifference or hostility. They must be given grants, grants, and more grants in exchange for books, books and more books....
Business must cease the mindless subsidizing of colleges and universities whose departments of economics, government, politics and history are hostile to capitalism and whose faculties will not hire scholars whose views are otherwise.
Finally, business money must flow away from the media which serve as megaphones for anticapitalist opinion and to media which are either pro-freedom or, if not necessarily ‘pro-business’ at least professionally capable of a fair and accurate treatment of procapitalist ideas, values, and arguments."
As BuzzFlash has observed, John R. Lott is among the foot soldiers in Simon's army. Lott’s first real taste of combat came with the publication of More Guns, Less Crime (1998). As the debate over gun violence and gun control intensified, the book introduced then Professor Lott to the nation’s op-ed pages and TV screens. The use to which More Guns was (and still is) put is eerily similar to the earlier conservative-funded works that suggested the futility or even perversity of well-intentioned government intrusion into the body politic. An obscure Charles Murray became an overnight conservative media maven with the publication of Losing Ground. He added to his visibility with The Bell Curve. Dinesh D'Souza made similar hay with his right-wing sponsored Illiberal Education.
There would be little reason for complaint with such works if they represented the efforts of serious scholars wrestling with vexing public policy issues. This is not the case. Rather, as has been well documented, the works of the Murrays and D'Souzas are deeply flawed. What is purported to be serious analysis is nothing of the sort. These are works rife with errors, omissions, data problems, improper and inappropriate statistical analysis, and self-serving but erroneous conclusions. Unfortunately, the voluminous and well-taken criticism of such work is much like the second-page correction of yesterday's headline. The widespread media attention given to these works and their authors initially -- in this case, fulfilling Simon's third commandment -- is often what remains as the most visible impression on the public memory.
Lott, who presently "writes" under the auspices of the American Enterprise Institute, had been housed at the University of Chicago; more specifically at the Olin Law and Economics Program, nesting ground for arch-conservative lawyers including Richard A. Epstein and Richard A. Posner.
True to form, Lott employs the mindless conservative assumption regarding most human behavior, from our trips to the market, to our divorce lawyers, to breaking and entering, it's all about "me." In whatever pursuit, individuals seek to maximize their utility -- in this case, criminals their ill-gotten gains -- in a rational manner. "Rationality" is key here. Thus, in states which permit the carrying of concealed weapons, the rational thief, mugger, rapist, and in particular, mass killer, will think twice before acting. He will either direct his criminal talents into crimes where the ultimate victim is absent (burglary versus robbery) or into states and communities where the citizens are less well armed. (For whatever reason, Lott ignores an alternative form of "rationality." Faced with greater force, criminals might equally increase the potency of their weaponry in a civilian version of the arms race.)
Lott's public assertions that violent crime is significantly reduced in those states and counties where the carrying of concealed weapons is permitted were made with extreme confidence and without qualification. He asserted that waiting periods, mandatory gun locks, prison sentences for adults whose guns are misused by youngsters, age limits, and background checks for purchasers of bomb-making material -- all items on the legislative agenda -- while well intended, were "likely to lead to the loss of more lives." His confidence is based on the breadth, and presumably the quality: "I analyze the first systematic national evidence for all 3,054 counties in the United States over the sixteen years from 1977 to 1992..." More than 54 thousand observations were utilized in a myriad of statistical procedures.
More Guns was subject to mixed reviews. Conservatives writing in Public Interest and National Review do not disappoint. Both Michael Barone and John O. McGinnis were quick to recall the perversity thesis as applied to government involvement in education, welfare, crime prevention, and now gun control. McGinnis proclaims proudly that Lott "has thus done to gun control what Charles Murray did to welfare payments in Losing Ground." Critical and damning criticism came in more liberal publications, including the New Statesman and the Washington Monthly.
In a unique manner, Lott provided his readers with an extended discussion of this debate in his penultimate chapter, "The Political and Academic Debate." In the latter part of the chapter, he details 23 specific criticisms directed against his data and methodology by a number of scholars, and in the eyes of one friendly reviewer, "calmly rebuts them." A less charitable critic asserts that "Lott doesn't directly respond to the...key finding that formal statistical tests reject [all of] his methods (emphasis added)." Indeed, Lott conceded nothing. He dismissed the numerous concerns that legitimately arise in statistical analysis where weak proxy data are often the best the researcher can provide in testing complex hypotheses. Lott is right, his critics are wrong, end of discussion. And work moved quickly beyond the halls of academia, and into the rough and tumble crude world of politics.
More Guns makes this abundantly clear. Lott "exposes" the shabby treatment his work was given by those politically opposed to his message. We learn, for instance, of at least two occasions where his opponents actually "hung up the phone" in the midst of a conversation. And despite the fact that people told him he was "politically naive," Lott professed to be shaken by the hostility with which his work has been treated. "I never would have guessed how much people fear discussion of these issues....nor how much energy goes into attacking the integrity of those who present such findings." Thick skinned, he's not.
The quality of Lott's work and mind are evident in BuzzFlash's recent news analysis. Paul Krugman characterized Lott and the multitude of William Simon’s sycophants as "hired guns." His latest charade, hiding behind the skirts of a woman, "Mary Rosh," should not surprise. Deceit in the search for Simon’s "truth" has been SOP since its inception.
David E. Kaun
Professor of Economics
University of California at Santa Cruz
A BUZZFLASH READER COMMENTARY
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