On its initial publication in 1998, John R. Lott’s More Guns, Less Crime drew both lavish praise and heated criticism. More than a decade later, it continues to play a key role in ongoing arguments over gun-control laws: Despite all the attacks by gun-control advocates, no one has ever been able to refute Lott’s simple, startling conclusion that more guns mean less crime. Relying on the most rigorously comprehensive data analysis ever conducted on crime statistics and right-to-carry laws, the book directly challenges common perceptions about the relationship of guns, crime, and violence. For this third edition, Lott draws on an additional 10 years of data – including provocative analysis of the effects of gun bans in Chicago and Washington, DC – that brings the book fully up to date and further bolsters its central contention.
Editorial Reviews
Review
“A compelling book with enough hard evidence that even politicians may have to stop and pay attention. More Guns, Less Crime is an exhaustive analysis of the effect of gun possession on crime rates. . . . Mr. Lott’s book—and the factual arsenals of other pro-gun advocates—are helping to redefine the argument over guns and gun control.”(James Bovard Wall Street Journal)
“John Lott’s More Guns, Less Crime revives the wisdom of the past by using the latest tools of social science. By constructing careful statistical models and deploying a wealth of crime data he shows that laws permitting the carrying of concealed weapons actually lead to a drop in crime in the jurisdictions that enact them. . . . By providing strong empirical evidence that yet another liberal policy is a cause of the very evil it purports to cure, he has permanently changed the terms of debate on gun control. . . . Lott’s book could hardly be more timely. . . . Lott’s work is a model of the meticulous application of economics and statistics to law and policy.”(John O. McGinnis National Review)
About the Author
John R. Lott, Jr., is the author five books, including Freedomnomics and Are Predatory Commitments Credible? Who Should the Courts Believe?, the latter also published by the University of Chicago Press.
