More Guns Less Crime

by John R. Lott Jr

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  lent crime, the presence of more police officers with arrest powers lowers the arrest rate, while a greater number of police officers without arrest powers raises the arrest rate.

  Neither of these results alone is particularly troubling, because increasing the number of police officers could reduce the crime rate enough so that the arrest rate could fall even if the officers did not slack off. Theoretically, the relationship between the number of police officers and the arrest rate could go either way. Yet in the case of violent crimes, the drop in arrest rates associated with more police officers is too large to be explained by a drop in the crime rate. In fact, the direct relationship between the number of police officers and violent crime implies a positive relationship. There are many possible explanations for this. Quite plausibly, the presence of more police officers encourages people to come forward to report crime. Another possibility is that relatively large police forces tend to be unionized and have managed to require less work from their officers. The bottom line is that using the number of police officers directly as a proxy for the level of law enforcement is at best a risky proposition. We must control for many other factors before we know exactly what we are measuring.

  Seven The Political and

  Academic Debate

  The Political Process

  When my original study was released, many commentators were ready to attack it. Anyone who had shown any interest in looking at the article was given a copy while I was in the process of revising it for the Journal of Legal Studies, although I quickly learned that it was not common practice to circulate studies to groups on both sides of the gun debate. Few comments were offered privately, but once the paper began to receive national press coverage, the attacks came very quickly.

  Before the press coverage started, it was extremely difficult to get even a proponent of gun control to provide critical comments on the paper when I presented it at the Cato Institute in early August 1996. I approached twenty-two pro-control people before Jens Ludwig, a young assistant professor at Georgetown University, accepted my request to comment on the paper.

  One of the more interesting experiences occurred when I asked Susan Glick, of the Violence Policy Center, to participate. 1 Glick, whom I called during June 1996, was one of the last people that I approached. She was unwilling to comment on my talk at Cato because she didn't want to "help give any publicity to the paper." Glick said that her appearance might help bring media attention to the paper that it wouldn't otherwise have gotten. When I pointed out that C-SPAN was likely to cover the event, she said she didn't care because "we can get good media whenever we want." When I asked her if I could at least send her a copy of the paper because I would appreciate any comments that she might have, she said, "Forget it, there is no way that I am going to look at it. Don't send it." 2

  However, when the publicity broke on the story with an article in USA Today on August 2, she was among the many people who left telephone messages immediately asking for a copy of the paper. In her case, the media were calling, and she "needfed] [my] paper to be able to criticize it." Because of all the commotion that day, I was unable to get back to

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  her right away. ABC National Television News was doing a story on my study for that day, and when at around 3:00 p.m. the ABC reporter doing the story, Barry Serafin, called saying that certain objections had been raised about my paper, he mentioned that one of those who had criticized it was Ms. Glick. After talking to Mr. Serafin, I gave Glick a call to ask her if she still wanted a copy of my paper. She said that she wanted it sent to her right away and wondered if I could fax it to her. I then noted that her request seemed strange because I had just gotten off the telephone with Mr. Serafin at ABC News, who had told me that she had been very critical of the study, saying that it was "flawed." I asked how she could have said that there were flaws in the paper without even having looked at it yet. At that point Ms. Glick hung up the telephone. 3

  Many of the attacks from groups like Handgun Control, Inc. and the Violence Policy Center focused on claims that my study had been paid for by gun manufacturers or that the Journal of Legal Studies was not a peer-reviewed journal and that I had chosen to publish the study in a "student-edited journal" to avoid the close scrutiny that such a review would provide. 4 These attacks were completely false, and I believe that those making the charges knew them to be false. At least they had been told by all the relevant parties here at the University of Chicago and at the Olin Foundation that the funding issues were false, and the questions about publishing in a "student-edited journal" or one that was not peer-reviewed were well known to be false because of the prominence of the journal. Some statements involved claims that my work was inferior to an earlier study by three criminologists at the University of Maryland who had examined five counties.

  Other statements, like those in the Los Angeles Times, tried to discredit the scholarliness of the study by claiming that "in academic circles, meanwhile, scholars found it curious that he would publicize his findings before they were subjected to peer review." 5 In fact, the paper was reviewed and accepted months before media stories started discussing it in August 1996.

  The attacks claiming that this work had been paid for by gun manufacturers have been unrelenting. Congressman Charles Schumer (D— N.Y.) wrote as follows in the Wall Street Journal: "I'd like to point out one other 'association.' The Associated Press reports that Prof. Lott's fellowship at the University of Chicago is funded by the Olin Foundation, which is 'associated with the Olin Corporation/ one of the nation's largest gun manufacturers. Maybe that's a coincidence, too. But it's also a fact." 6 Others were even more direct. In a letter that the Violence Policy Center mass-mailed to newspapers around the country, M. Kristen Rand, the Center's federal policy director, wrote,

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  Lott's work was, in essence, funded by the firearms industry—the primary beneficiary of increased handgun sales. Lott is the John M. Olin fellow at the University of Chicago law school, a position founded by the Olin Foundation. The foundation was established by John Olin of the Olin Corp., manufacturer of Winchester ammunition and maker of the infamous "Black Talon" bullet. Lott's study of concealed handgun laws is the product of gun-industry funding.... (See, as one of many examples, "Gun Industry Paid," Omaha World Herald, March 10, 1997, p. 8.) 7

  Dan Kotowski, executive director of the Illinois Council Against Handgun Violence, said that "the study was biased because it was funded by the parent company of Winchester, Inc., a firearms manufacturer." 8 Kotowski is also quoted as saying that the claimed link between Winchester and my study's conclusions was "enough to call into question the study's legitimacy. It's more than a coincidence." 9 Similar claims have been made by employees of Handgun Control, Inc. and other gun-control organizations.

  Indeed, gun-control groups that were unwilling to comment publicly on my study at the Cato Institute forum had time to arrange press conferences that were held exactly at the time that I was presenting my paper in Washington. Their claims were widely reported by the press in the initial news reports on my findings. A typical story stated that "Lott's academic position is funded by a grant from the Olin Foundation, which is associated with the Olin Corp. Olin's Winchester division manufactures rifles and bullets," 10 and it was covered in newspapers from the Chicago Tribune to the Houston Chronicle and the Des Moines Register, as well as in "highbrow" publications like The National Journal. The Associated Press released a partial correction stating that the Oliri Foundation and Olin Corporation are separate organizations and that the Winchester subsidiary of the Olin Corporation makes ammunition, not guns, but a Nexis search of news stories revealed that only one newspaper in the entire country that had published the original report carried the Associated Press correction. 11

  Congressman Schumer's letter did produce a strong response from William Simon, the Olin Foundation's president an
d former U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, in the Wall Street Journal for September 6, 1996:

  An Insult to Our Foundation

  As president of the John M. Olin Foundation, I take great umbrage at Rep. Charles Schumer's scurrilous charge (Letters to the Editor, Sept. 4) that our foundation underwrites bogus research to advance the interests of companies that manufacture guns and ammunition. He asserts (falsely) that the John M. Olin Foundation is "associated" with the Olin Corp. and (falsely again) that the Olin Corp. is one of the nation's largest gun manu-

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  facturers. Mr. Schumer then suggests on the basis of these premises that Prof. John Lott's article on gun-control legislation (editorial page, Aug. 28) must have been fabricated because his research fellowship at the University of Chicago was funded by the John M. Olin Foundation.

  This is an outrageous slander against our foundation, the Olin Corp., and the scholarly integrity of Prof. Lott. Mr. Schumer would have known that his charges were false if he had taken a little time to check his facts before rushing into print. Others have taken the trouble to do so. For example, Stephen Chapman of the Chicago Tribune looked into the charges surrounding Mr. Lott's study, and published an informative story in the Aug. 15 issue of that paper, which concluded that, in conducting his research, Prof. Lott was not influenced either by the John M. Olin Foundation or by the Olin Corp. Anyone wishing to comment on this controversy ought first to consult Mr. Chapman's article and, more importantly, should follow his example of sifting the facts before reaching a conclusion. For readers of the Journal, here are the key facts.

  The John M. Olin Foundation, of which I have been president for nearly 20 years, is an independent foundation whose purpose is to support individuals and institutions working to strengthen the free enterprise system. We support academic programs at the finest institutions in the nation, including the University of Chicago, Harvard, Yale, Stanford, Columbia, the University of Virginia, and many others. We do not tell scholars what to write or what to say.

  The foundation was created by the personal fortune of the late John M. Olin, and is not associated with the Olin Corp. The Olin Corp. has never sought to influence our deliberations. Our trustees have never taken into account the corporate interests of the Olin Corp. or any other company when reviewing grant proposals. We are as independent of the Olin Corp. as the Ford Foundation is of the Ford Motor Co.

  The John M. Olin Foundation has supported for many years a program in law and economics at the University of Chicago Law School. This program is administered and directed by a committee of faculty members in the law school. This committee, after reviewing many applications in a very competitive process, awarded a research fellowship to Mr. Lott. We at the foundation had no knowledge of who applied for these fellowships, nor did we ever suggest that Mr. Lott should be awarded one of them. We did not commission his study, nor, indeed, did we even know of it until last month, when Mr. Lott presented his findings at a conference sponsored by a Washington think tank.

  As a general rule, criticism of research studies should be based on factual grounds rather than on careless and irresponsible charges about the motives of the researcher. Mr. Lott's study should be evaluated on its own

  merits without imputing motives to him that do not exist. I urge Mr. Schumer to check his facts more carefully in the future.

  Finally, it was incorrectly reported in the Journal (Sept. 5) that the John M. Olin Foundation is 'headed by members of the family that founded the Olin Corp.' This is untrue. The trustees and officers of the foundation have been selected by virtue of their devotion to John Olin's principles, not by virtue of family connections. Of our seven board members, only one is a member of the Olin family. None of our officers is a member of the Olin family—neither myself as president, nor our secretary-treasurer, nor our executive director.

  This letter, I think, clarifies the funding issue, and I would only like to add that while the faculty at the Law School chose to award me this fellowship, even they did not inquire into the specific research I planned to undertake. 12 The judgment was made solely on the quality and quantity of my past research, and while much of my work has dealt with crime, this was my first project involving gun control. No one other than myself had any idea what research I was planning to do. However, even if one somehow believed that Olin were trying to buy research, it must be getting a very poor return on its money. Given the hundreds of people at the different universities who have received the same type of fellowship, I have been the only one to work on the issue of gun control.

  Unfortunately, as the quote from Ms. Rand's letter and statements by many other gun-control advocates—made long after Simon's explanation—indicates, the facts about funding did little to curtail the comments of those spreading the false rumors. 13

  After these attacks on my funding, the gun-control organizations brought up new issues. For example, during the spring of 1997 the Violence Policy Center sent out a press release entitled "Who Is John Lott?" that claimed, among other things, "Lott believes that some crime is good for society, that wealthy criminals should not be punished as harshly as poor convicts." I had in fact been arguing that "individuals guilty of the same crime should face the same expected level of punishment" and that with limited resources to fight crime, it is not possible to eliminate all of it. 14 1 would have thought that most people would recognize these silly assertions for what they were, but they were picked up and republished by publications such as the New Republic. 15

  The aversion to honest public debate has been demonstrated to me over and over again since my study first received attention. Recently, for example, Randy Roth, a visiting colleague at the University of Chicago Law School, asked me to appear on a radio program that he does from the University of Hawaii on a public radio station. I had almost com-

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  pletely stopped doing radio interviews a few months before because they were too much of an interruption to my work, but Randy, whom I have known only very briefly from lunch-table conversation, seemed like a very interesting person, and I thought that it would be fun to do the show with him. I can only trust that he doesn't normally have as much trouble as he had this time in getting an opposing viewpoint for his program. In a note that Randy shared with me, he described a conversation that he had with Brandon Stone, of the Honolulu Police Department, whom he had been trying for a while to get to participate. Randy wrote as follows on March 3, 1997:

  Brandon called to say he had not changed his mind—he will not participate in any gun-control radio show involving John Lott. Furthermore, he said he had discussed this with all the others who are active in this area (the Hawaii Firearms Coalition, I think he called it), and that they have "banded together"—none will participate in such a show.

  He said he didn't want to "impugn" John's character ... [and] then he went on to talk about all the money involved in this issue, the fact that [the] Olin Corp. is in the firearm business and financing John's chair, etc. He said John's study had been given to the media before experts first could discredit it, implying that this "tactic" was used because the study could not withstand the scrutiny of objective scholars.

  He said the ideas promoted by John's study are "fringe ideas" and that they are "dangerous." When I pointed out that such ideas not only have been publicly debated in other states, but that some of those states actually have enacted legislation, he basically just said that Hawaii is a special place and other states have sometimes been adversely affected by unfair tactics by the pro-gun lobby.

  I kept coming back to my belief that public debate is good and that my show would give him an opportunity to point out anything about John's study that he believes to be incorrect, irrelevant, distorted, or whatever. He kept saying that public debate does more harm than good when others misuse the forum. When he specifically mentions the firearm industry ("follow the money" was his suggestion, to understand what John's study is all about
), I reminded him of John's association with the University of Chicago and his outstanding reputation, both for scholarship and integrity. He then said he realized John was "my friend," as though I couldn't be expected to be objective. He also said that John was "out of his field" in this area.

  My hunch is that it's going to be extremely difficult finding a studio guest with the credentials and ability to do a good job on the pro—gun-control side.

  After talking with Randy and in an attempt to create a balanced program, I also telephoned Mr. Stone. While we did not get into the detail that he went into with Randy, I did try to address his concerns over my funding and my own background in criminal justice as chief economist at the U.S. Sentencing Commission during the late 1980s. Stone also expressed his concerns to me that Hawaiians would not be best served by our debating the issue and that Hawaiians had already made up their minds on this topic. I said that he seemed like an articulate person and that it would be good to have a lively discussion on the subject, but he said that the program "could only do more harm than good" and that any pro—gun-control participation would only lend "credibility" to the discussion. 16

  Before I did my original study, I would never have expected it to receive the attention that it did. None of the refereed journal articles that I have produced has received so much attention. Many people have told me that it was politically naive. That may be, but this much is clear: I never would have guessed how much people fear discussion of these issues. I never would have known how much effort goes into deliberately ignoring certain findings in order to deny them news coverage. Nor would I have seen, after news coverage did occur, how much energy goes into attacking the integrity of those who present such findings, with such slight reference—or no reference at all—to the actual merits of the research. I was also surprised by the absolute confidence shown by gun-control advocates that they could garner extensive news coverage whenever they wanted.