Average Rating: 
Rating:  - The Kant of Gun Ownership
In much the same way that Immanuel Kant devoted reams of dense prose to a philosophical foundation for the Golden Rule, John Lott piles chapter after chapter and chart after chart of thorough, systematic data analysis into support for propositions that you intuitively know to be correct.Armed citizens stop crimes. The more armed citizens you have, the lower your rate of violent crime -- criminals are stupid, but they're rational, and they don't want to get shot any more than you do. En route, Lott's analysis of the data reveals additional points that are very interesting and may be slightly less intuitive. For instance: 1. Blacks benefit more from gun ownership than whites. On average, black Americans live in worse neighborhoods with higher crime rates than white Americans. When laws permitting citizens to carry concealed firearms are introduced, crime rates fall more dramatically in those neighborhoods, and black Americans benefit disproportionately. Yep, that's right. Gun control is racist. 2. Women benefit more from gun ownership than men. Women's ownership of concealed weapon permits decreases the women's murder rate more than men's ownership decreases the men's rate. Women toting guns also significantly reduce the rape rate. Amen, sister. Gun control is sexist, too. 3. Private gun ownership is cheap law enforcement. I don't mean vigilantism -- I mean deterrence. Private gun ownership lowers more crime per dollar spent than almost any other crime reduction measure...and the gun owners bear virtually all of the cost. And the list goes on. In addition to the statistical analysis (including abundant responses to academic and not-so-academic criticism), Lott recounts the reception of his initial paper on the subject, as well as the hardback edition of the book, and discusses the media mistreatment of school shootings and similar events. The book is dense, but as statistics-driven sociology goes, quite readable. Go buy it today. And then apply for your concealed weapon permit.
Rating: - Clearly written and a truly thought provoking book
It is too bad that there isn't more of this clear headed and factual discussion of important issues that directly impact people's lives. This book may not have completely changed my mind on the issue of gun control, but I have certainly gone from automatically supporting controls to a much more agnostic position.Probably the most important thing that I learned from this book is that sometimes what may seem like the most obvious, simplest solutions to problems can have unintended consequences. I guess that I have become more concerned that we must be careful that gun control policies do not the primarily disarm law-abiding "good" citizens, who are most likely to obey any new laws. I guess that I have also come to believe that guns not only have obvious bad effects, but also beneficial ones for people's safety and that we must ask what is the net effect of new rules. Lott's powerful evidence that it is poor minorities who live in high crime areas who benefit the most from being able to defend themselves hit me hard. The evidence on accidental gun deaths was also very surprising. With all the national news coverage of accidental gun deaths involving young children, I would never have guessed until I read Lott's book how infrequent these events are. Again what is most powerful about the book is not that Lott denies the problems, but that he asks how do the benefits compare with the costs: Do guns on net save childrens' and adults' lives? Just as getting rid of pools would prevent drownings but simultaneously eliminate important benefits, Lott shows that more lives are saved than lost from gun ownership. I was also deeply bothered by the outrageous attacks that gun control organizations like Handgun Control launched against Lott.
Rating: - Excellent analysis of concealed carry laws
Professor Lott's book thoroughly documents the generally (though not exclusively) positive effects of non-discretionary ("shall-issue") CCW throughout the country. If the book has any shortcoming at all, it is in its author's willingness to respond to every conceivable anti-gun argument, no matter how tangential, irrelevant, or downright silly that argument may be. Many of these myths were debunked long before Lott released his data, as his is not the first on the topic, just the most comprehensive. Anti-gunners parroted these myths long before Lott's book came around, they continue to parrot them now, and they will probably continue to do so for a long time to come, no matter how many more researchers may prove them wrong. To his credit, however, Lott has demonstrated far more patience with these fear-mongers than I would have.Even Lott's critics have been unable to distort the statistics enough to show any deleterious effects of CCW; at best, they can ignore certain states and certain years, and then proceed to "prove" that CCW has no measurable effect on crime whatsoever. But if that is the debate, whether CCW's effects are good vs. nonexistent, why is there any debate at all? It's too bad that even Professor Lott can't get his own mayor to grasp this simple concept. Lott's book will accomplish a great deal if enough reasonable, open-minded people take the time to read it.
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