Estimated reading time: 3 minutes
Gun control is often sold as a way to protect vulnerable communities. But according to John Lott, the data shows the opposite.
Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC), recently appeared on “Stu Does America” on The Blaze Podcast Network to discuss his latest article published at The Federalist. His core argument: modern gun control policies disproportionately harm minorities, women, and low-income Americans. The very groups politicians claim to be helping.
The discussion centered on recent Department of Justice lawsuits challenging restrictive gun laws, with critics arguing such cases fall outside the Civil Rights Division’s mission. Lott disagrees.
“These are exactly the types of people civil rights laws are supposed to protect,” he explained, pointing out that gun control policies routinely raise costs and create bureaucratic barriers that wealthier, politically connected citizens can navigate. But poorer Americans cannot.
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One of the clearest examples, Lott says, is the background check system.
Since 1998, the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) has issued roughly 5.1 million initial denials. Gun control advocates often cite that number as proof the system stops dangerous criminals. But Lott says that framing is deeply misleading.
Those are initial denials, not confirmed prohibitions. According to Lott, more than 99 percent of those denials are mistakes, usually caused by name and birthdate similarities. Because background checks often rely on phonetic name matching rather than full identifying data, law-abiding buyers with common names are flagged, especially within racial and ethnic groups where naming patterns overlap.
The result, Lott argues, is that lawful Black and Hispanic gun buyers are disproportionately delayed or blocked from exercising their rights. Fixing those errors isn’t simple, either. Appeals can cost $3,000 or more, placing them far out of reach for many families.
That error rate shows up clearly in enforcement statistics. In 2022 alone, NICS issued more than 131,000 denials, yet prosecutors brought just 18 indictments, a prosecution rate of roughly 0.014 percent. If private employers ran background checks with that level of inaccuracy, Lott says, they’d be sued into oblivion.
The problem isn’t limited to background checks.
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Lott pointed to Los Angeles County as a real-world example of how discretionary permitting systems skew toward elites. Prior to the Supreme Court’s Bruen decision, fewer than 300 concealed carry permits existed in a county with more than eight million adults. Permit holders were overwhelmingly wealthy, politically connected men. Women, Black residents, and Hispanics were dramatically underrepresented, despite facing similar or higher crime risks.
Cost barriers produce similar outcomes elsewhere. Illinois charges roughly $450 for a concealed carry permit, while Indiana charges $0. Unsurprisingly, Indiana sees far higher permit participation in high-crime, low-income areas, while Illinois permits are concentrated among affluent suburban residents.
“Gun control doesn’t disarm criminals,” Lott argued. “It disarms the people most likely to be victims.”
His conclusion was blunt: when gun ownership becomes expensive, discretionary, and bureaucratic, it stops being a right and starts being a privilege reserved for the wealthy and well-connected.
For communities facing the highest crime rates, Lott says, that distinction can be deadly.
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is a seasoned outdoorsman, lifelong hunter, and the kind of guy who’d rather track whitetails than scroll social media. As an editor for GunsAmerica, he’s got a sharp eye for spotting both solid gear and bad gun laws. Whether he’s deep in the woods or deep in editorial deadlines, Larry brings a no-nonsense, tell-it-like-it-is approach to firearms, hunting, and the great American tradition of self-reliance. If there’s a hot debate on gun rights or the latest in hunting tech, you can bet Larry’s got an opinion—and it’s probably backed up with both facts and field experience.
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One of the problems is that pro 2a politicians have deliberately blocked the collection of actual data that would refute or verify Lott’s claims. I believe law abiding gun ownership could reduce crime. Unfortunately, we dont have the data to support it because it is illegal to collect the data.
You should read Lott’s book More Guns , Less Crime . The data is provided within .
“Unfortunately, we dont (sic) have the data to support it because it is illegal to collect the data.”
No it is not. Cite the statute that makes it “illegal”. I’ll wait. Where do you come up with such nonsense?
Not that I disagree with the premise of the story, but the conclusions are based on speculative effects rather than a deeper dive which is necessary to identify cause and effect. Correlation is NOT causation.
I am curious, would Mr. Dacian say the crime ratio of private citizen CCWs vs police officers committing crimes be a lie also? I have read the crime rate of this group of private citizens is 10% of the rate committed by PD. Any comment Mr. D?
We need “German Style” police recruit vetting. Applicants for the German Police must be thoroughly vetted including given mental tests. German police trainees also get a mandatory 2 year training in regards to all gun laws, defusing volatile confrontations, training in emergency treatments, just to name a few. The result is the police killings of civilians in Germany is often below 10 per year while in the U.S. Police regularly gun down at least 1,500 people a year. Several years ago I was astonished to find that in China their police actually shoot and kill less people than the Germans do and their population is far larger than Germany’s and the U.S.
In the U.S. too many misfits that are sadists, bullies, or suffering from PTSD are being hired as Police Officers and given insufficient training to boot making for an army of Cops that are often no more than “Thugs in Uniform”. The yearly mass killing of civilians by them is proof of this.
“In the U.S. too many misfits that are sadists, bullies, or suffering from PTSD are being hired as Police Officers and given insufficient training to boot making for an army of Cops that are often no more than “Thugs in Uniform”. The yearly mass killing of civilians by them is proof of this.”
Talk about correlation not being causation, got any facts to back up that statement?
Fun with statistics, I see.
– What is the level of gun ownership in Germany vice the US?
– What is the population of Germany compared to the US?
– What is the number of LEOs in the US vs Germany?
– What is the number of deadly force encounters by law enforcement in the US per year vice Germany.
– How many of those encounters actually resulted in deadly force?
– How many of the “~1,500” officer involved shooting were unjustified?
– You sound like you are an expert on police training. How long is the training (lets use the CA POST training for example), and what is covered?
That is the entire point of “gun control” Iaws. They are NOT meant to heIp anyone. They are about disarmament.
John Lott propaganda: MYTH: Most studies show that more guns mean less crime
Summary:
Researcher John Lott falsely claims that two-thirds of peer-reviewed literature shows concealed carry laws reduce crime.
Lott’s false claim relies on obsolete work and studies in which right-to-carry (RTC) laws are not the variables of interest.
Most studies with a national scope published since 2005 find that RTC laws increase crime, particularly aggravated assaults. In short, more guns in public means more crime.
How many crimes are prevented by people concealed carrying?
Until you can define what a woman is, mayne you shouldn’t be making comments publicly.
Grow up. The commenter is right the correlation he suggests is weak, at best.
Until you go back to school and study the latest scientific progress in biology, psychology, and sociology you are not qualified to even attempt to make those type of comments.
I am willing to bet that without looking it up you do not even know the difference between transsexual and transgender.
Research a subject from the scientific viewpoint before spreading Far Right ignorance and prejudice on such a subject thereby proving that you are not a product of higher education.
Try again you failed.
Perhaps you should have put some links in, to show this data you say exists…
I agree
I would like to do just that but this website does not permit me to do this. I have tried giving links but then my posts never appear.
The problem with John lot is that he is dishonest.
He uses fraudulent accounts to post bogus reviews in support of his so-called ‘scholarly reports’.
He’s the George Santos/Anthony Delawder of gun research.
“Scholar Invents Fan To Answer His Critics
By Richard Morin
February 1, 2003
Mary Rosh thinks the world of John R. Lott Jr., the controversial American Enterprise Institute scholar whose book “More Guns, Less Crime” caused such a stir a few years ago.
In postings on Web sites in this country and abroad, Rosh has tirelessly defended Lott against his harshest critics. He is a meticulous researcher, she’s repeatedly told those who say otherwise. He’s not driven by the ideology of the left or the right. Rosh has even summoned memories of the classes she took from Lott a decade ago to illustrate Lott’s probity and academic gifts.
“I have to say that he was the best professor I ever had,” Rosh gushed in one Internet posting.
Indeed, Mary Rosh and John Lott agree about nearly everything.
Well they should, because Mary Rosh is John Lott — or at least that’s the pseudonym he’s used for three years to defend himself against his critics in online debates, Lott acknowledged this week.
“I probably shouldn’t have done it — I know I shouldn’t have done it — but it’s hard to think of any big advantage I got except to be able to comment fictitiously,” said Lott, an economist who has held senior research positions at the University of Chicago and Yale.
Moreover, the AEI resident scholar acknowledged on Friday that he permitted his 13-year-old son to write an effusive review of “More Guns, Less Crime” and then post it on the Amazon.com Web site. It was signed “Maryrosh.”
Lott said that he frequently has used the name “Mary Rosh” to defend himself in online debates. The name is an amalgam of the first two letters of his four sons’ first names. In a posting to the Web site maintained by Tim Lambert, an Australian professor who has relentlessly attacked Lott’s guns studies, “Mary Rosh” claims to be a former student of Lott at the University of Pennsylvania, where the economist taught between 1991 and 1995.“
When a reporter attempted to read the posting to him over the telephone, Lott stopped him after the first few words. “I’m sure I did that. I shouldn’t have done it.”
Julian Sanchez, a Cato Institute staffer, is the cybersleuth who tracked Mary Rosh back to John Lott.
“I compared that IP with the header of an email Dr. Lott had sent me from his home address. And by yet another astonishing coincidence, it had originated at the very same IP address. Now, what are the odds of that?” he wrote in a posting on his Web site. “Sarcasm aside, we’re a little old to be playing dress up, aren’t we Dr. Lott?”
Lott said he initially used his own name in online debates with critics. “But you just get into really emotional things with people. You also run into other problems.” So he started using the name Mary Rosh. “I should not have done it, there is no doubt. But it was a way to get information into the debate.”
Oh, but Giffords, amd mom’s blah blah blah puts out 100% honest statistical information on their sites? Go blow a goat troll.
Please. This is important. Lott has thrown a wrench in the whole pro gun debate with his antics. He is harming the effort, not helping it.
Yes you are correct but Lott is out to make money, the truth is irrelevant to him.
Sounds like a democrat….
in the lefts eyes a criminal is a terrible thing to waste……..