GunFacts Hasn’t Any (3)
Just a quick debunking, in the lull of the holiday frenzy.
Myth: CCWs will lead to mass public shootings
Fact: Multiple victim public shootings drop in states that pass shall-issue CCW
legislation.17 .
Author cites John Lott (Lott J, Landes W; “Multiple Victim Public Shootings, Bombings, and Right-to-Carry Concealed Handgun Laws: Contrasting Private and Public Law Enforcement”; University of Chicago – covers years 1977 to 1995).
First, this doesn’t pass the common sense test. Consider the mass shootings in this country–they are most often perpetrated by deeply disturbed and suicidal individuals. These killers don’t expect to get away with their crimes; in short, they are committing highly irrational acts. Yet, Lott would have us believe some mentally ill and irrational gunman is going to reason that he shouldn’t really shoot up a mall or a school because the state has a CCW law?
Second, Lott’s research and tactics have often been suspect. I’ll not go into those details now–for now, I’ll leave it to Prof. Mark Kleiman of UCLA to summarize. (Scroll to “LOTT, DONOHUE, AND LEVITT”).
Third, there exist a number of studies that contradict Lott’s thesis. This one finds “virtually no support for the hypothesis that the laws increase or reduce the number of mass public shootings. ”
This also is key in debunking much, if not all, of Lott’s “More Guns, Less Crime” thesis.
