John Lott Claims the Johns Hopkins Missouri Study is Flawed

John R. Lott Jr. Guns and Patriots The economist, who is the leading expert on gun violence statistics, refuted a Johns Hopkins study that claims the repeal of Missouri’s “universal background checks” law is the cause of an increase in murder rates, in an exclusive Guns & Patriots interview. “There is a lot of arbitrary cherry-picking of the data,” said John R. Lott Jr., president of Crime Prevention Research Center, a research and education organization that studies the relationship between laws regulating the ownership or use of guns, crime, and public safety.  “Other research that looked at all the states, not just one, comes to a different conclusion.” Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health conducted a study that claimsMissouri’s murder rate increased by 16 percent after the state legislature in 2007 repealed its universal background checks law, which required all handgun purchasers to undergo a background check at the auspices of local law enforcement.  Federal law already prohibits interstate firearm transfers, including handguns, except among licensed dealers who are required to conduct a federal background check of all purchasers through the National Instant Criminal Background Check System, said Lott, who is a Fox News columnist. Even though there are 19 states in the union with universal background checks or similar laws, researchers in the study chose only one state to look at, covering only one point-in-time, addressing murder rates alone, he said. “Simply looking at whether murder rates were higher after the law was rescinded than before misses much of what was going on.” Does that even make sense? Yes, 19 other states have universal background checks, but the study was about Missouri because "the state legislature in 2007 repealed its universal background checks law." This is what we have to contend with. Double-talking nonsense from the guys who claim to have "right" on their side By the way, please notice how even a radical pro-gun site like Guns and Patriots will abbreviate the name of the school to "Johns Hopkins." Yet, when we do it some folks accuse us of purposely leaving out the "Bloomberg" part for effect.