Opposing Views: Gun Control | Dan Gross & Dr. John R. Lott

Intro

let's just talk about not as you said how to take certain guns away from all people let's talk about how to keep all guns away from certain people and those being the people that we all agree shouldn't have guns and unfortunately a lot of the gun control that we have right now primarily disarms the very people who need protection the most if my research convinces Me of anything it's people who are most likely victims of violent crime overwhelmingly poor blacks who live in high crime urban areas who are the ones who benefit the most from having the option to be able to go and protect themselves the police are very important but the police themselves understand that they virtually always arrive on the crime scene after the crimes committed and having a gun turns out to be by far the safest course of action welcome to episode 122 of the Michaela Peterson podcast this is another opposing views episode where I speak with two people separately who have opposing views on contentious subjects this is my favorite format of episode and one I'll be focusing on more in upcoming episodes I spoke with Dan Gross and Dr John R Lott about gun control in America in the first half I talked to Dan Gross who did the stricter gun control side of this debate after his brother was very badly wounded in the 1997 Empire State shooting gross became a gun control activist he's worked to raise awareness on gun safety spearheading campaigns that teach gun owners to mitigate risk gross is the former president of the Brady campaign to prevent gun violence and co-founded the center for gun rights and responsibility in the second half I spoke with gun rights Advocate The Economist and political commentator John R Lott he's worked for Yale the University of Chicago and the U.S department of justice under Trump he's the founder and former president of the crime prevention Research Center John Lott has published op-eds in the Wall Street Journal the New York Times the Los Angeles Times and more please please remember to keep the comments civil organizing these episodes is very tricky and I really love doing them I think they're so interesting so let's keep things civil so that more people will agree to come on next week's episode is opposing views on bitcoin I hope you enjoy this episode in this format if you do please hit subscribe I usually release episodes Tuesday and Friday but I basically almost died last week from a combination of strep and RSV a virus I didn't know existed I'm barely alive as it is you can probably hear it in my voice kids are completely overrated enjoy your week [Music] Dan Gross welcome to my podcast thank you Michaela before we get started and I ask you a bunch of questions can you give a brief background about who you are and what it is you do yeah I mean what I uh what what I do right now is a lot of things but the reason that we're talking is because of my kind of unique and extensive experience working around guns in the U.S I got involved with the issue because my brother was shot in a shooting that happened on observation deck of the Empire State Building actually in February of 1997 he was shot in the head critically injured um miraculously he's alive um and so there's a lot to look at in terms of that cup half full scenario but for him obviously and for all of us who love them and care about him it changed the way we looked at what we do and and our lives uh and in my case I at the time I was a partner at a big Ad Agency thought I was living my dream but uh wound up realizing that there were things that I could do applying my same passion for marketing and communicating to this issue of preventing others from going through what my family's gone through so I quit that job and advertising started an organization that was called Pax it became the center to prevent youth violence it became the biggest 501c3 nonprofit in the country on on on guns um and uh and then over time as that organization grew built a relationship with Jim and Sarah Brady who were personally Heroes of mine and at one point they called along with their board and asked me if I would consider running their organization down in DC which was one of those deals where I said I'll talk to them but it just doesn't make sense I live in New York and they're in DC and uh and but lo and behold they have to talk to them it was just an opportunity I couldn't turn down so I ran the Brady campaign for six years and and left a couple years ago um for uh for a variety of reasons but a big big part of it is I I was a little bit burnt out focusing just on this issue uh you know the worst thing that ever happened to me and dealing with all the Heartbreak um you know on a daily basis that so many people go through so uh yeah now to answer your question finally um I do a lot of Consulting um including on uh including still on the on the gun issue and I've started an organization called the center for gun rights and responsibility to work with the gun owning Community around the common ground that have always been convinced exists and right now um people are listening to me more than they they you know especially in the gun Community um than they did when I would they were able to kind of caricaturize me as the president of the Brady campaign so that's what I'm doing a little more than you bargain for right Michaela but uh that's what I that's what I do that's perfect that's perfect so I think we should start off by you giving maybe a an overview of what your stance on gun control is and I know that's kind of a large question but I mean is it some people should own certain guns or just a background about what you believe is right for Americans yeah they're kind of two first of all what I believe is right for Americans is almost entirely consistent with what most Americans think is right for for most Americans I'm not trying to prescribe anything I'm just trying to find that common ground that I was talking about and really I think it Essence boils down to to two things well one fundamental thing which is you know we we all just want to be safe and we get so caught up in this polarizing political debate and immediately you know pick a team pick a tribe based on our political affiliation and and we don't really realize all the the common ground that that that is there and Common Ground that'll accomplish what we all want which is to to make all of us safe at the end of the day and there are two fundamental uh aspects to that that I've always you know made my quote career on this issue um career where I need more money I would say an advertising this is a career where the payoff is in creating some positive change and there are two uh two fundamental things um one is let's just talk about not as you said how to take certain guns away from all people let's talk about how to keep all guns away from certain people and those being the people that we all agree shouldn't have guns uh because when we look at them you strip away all the rhetoric and all the anger and and and and and you know that's defying this quote debate for so long you really realize we all agree who probably shouldn't be able to just Waltz into a store and and buy a gun most gun stores agree you know people it's just a it's kind of an obvious thing when you look at it that way and then the other half of the equation is the responsibility that gun owners need to take totally compartmentalized from any political conversation whatsoever about gun control about the very real risks associated with having a gun in the home just like their real risks if you bring a chainsaw into your home or a hammer into your home and you know a piece a piece of electronic equipment you want to understand what those risks are and then you want to do everything that you can to mitigate those risks unfortunately what's happened is that because this issue is so immediately defined as a as an emotional political debate gun owners too often tend to overlook that other very important part of the conversation let's talk about the suicide that happens let's talk about the unintentional shootings that that happen but let's talk about him in a way that gun owners can do reasonable things without it all curtailing anything politically their rights own a gun or you know we've got to go into this with a with a respect for the fact that people who own guns you know my grandfather and father took me to Yankee game so when I was a kid that's what we did that's how we bonded you know at this very moment their fathers and grandfathers taking their kids hunting and it's bi and we have to respect that this is you know this is not what this issue is about what I want is when that father and grandfather take their kid hunting that they're teaching that child about firearm safety that when they get into the home and they have a teenager there that they're careful to make sure that that teenager isn't going to have unsupervised access to that gun if you know that's what they deem is is the safest thing to do so those are the two fundamental things politically it to me it's almost entirely about just keeping guns out of the hands of the people we all agree shouldn't have them and then in terms of education and awareness it's about just starting a conversation about the very real risks about a gun in the home and without trying to take guns away or any gun control or anything let's educate people who bring guns into the home about those risks and what they can do to mitigate them okay so that sounds pretty reasonable thank you uh why why is it that you were kind of caricatured and like vilified by certain communities yeah um I think it's because of how the kind of knee-jerk reaction when it comes to talking about this issue and you know it's it's what is what does the media want to show when it's you know to get eyeballs it's people want to show a debate um and as a result what's happening is you know I'm saying the same things that I've always said uh but now people are listening because I can't be characterized as the president of the Brady campaign because you know now I'm I'm walking a different walk so I think it's just a a symptom um of of unfortunately the way this issue has been ingrained into the American cultures and All or Nothing black and white um metaphorically um issue rather than you know the there's no incentive for people who run organizations on both sides of the issues by the way on both sides of the issue they want to raise money politicians want to raise their profile they want to raise money so there's no and this is this issue is not unique in this regard it's a terrible example of how you know it's a great example of how terrible this issue can be um but you know everybody wants to raise money everybody wants to raise their profiles and as a result there's really no incentive for like a leading organization on either side to really genuinely respectfully put their arm around gun owners and say like listen we all want the same thing and that just makes it easy and it kind of feeds on itself and the result is like like literally caricatures of me and you know a leading magazine in the in the in the Pro pro-gun Community with a megaphone with fire spitting out of it and scared children in the windows watching me swing through the city like literally caricatures but you know that that I can deal with that's almost fun but it's the uh what what happens as a result of that which is um it just contributes to this um this this kind of idea that this is just a political debate and and as a result us not listening to each other yeah well I'm I'm trying to figure out how to bridge gaps in these contentious issues so hopefully this helps um so you talked about keeping all guns from the wrong people so how would you suggest judging people um figuring out if they're the wrong type of person yeah and let me start by saying there's obviously no perfect way to do that you and you get into some genuine conversations about social justice issues and you know other other things that that that I care about deeply but I think it's important to start by realizing that right now those people are defined um you know there is the the Brady Bill that became law um defined and then there was an amendment to it about domestic abusers the Lautenberg Amendment defines those people convicted uh convicted felons um people who've been adjudicated mentally ill people who have been and convicted of domestic abuse I mean and those background checks based on that happen every day and they've saved countless lives you know we're in the uh in the in the hundreds of thousands of of of I think it might be more than that um of guns that have been sailed I haven't looked at the figures lately of sales that have been prevented to those people in the prohibited categories imagine how many lives that's it so there's really people might want you to think there's a there's a real struggle and debate over how you would categorize these people but the fact is they're already you know why is the speed limit 55 instead of 57 you know at some point it becomes an arbitrary conversation but the important thing is that there is a speed limit in place and it works and it saves lives and so forth the problem is that all the gun sales that happen in our country every day that um are outside of that background check system so that background check system only happens at federally licensed firearm dealers and you know it's it's there's one happening right now I guarantee it where somebody is getting a background check and and you know it'll be decided whether they're in any of those categories or not and they'll be able to be able to get their gun the problem is you know when you hear about and I think this is language that isn't helpful things like the Gun Show loophole you know what the gun show have you heard of The Gun Show loophole no no the Gun Show loophole is what people call the fact people on the gun control side call the fact that uh people can walk into a quote gun show which Ambiguously defined which is part part of the problem and be um and buy a gun without a background check because it's uh because it's a gun show and it's not a federally licensed firearm dealer sometimes from federally licensed firearm dealers and do it off the books so that hurts the law-abiding gun dealers because those people don't have to charge taxes number not number one but it really hurts all of our Collective safety because if you're a straw purchaser who wants to buy guns and flood them into impacted communities across the country you think you're going to go to a federally licensed firearm dealer to get those guns or do you think you're going to go someplace that does not require a background check the reason why I think it's very important to um not just talk about it in terms of the Gun Show loophole is that you know first of all it's not true of all gun shows but second of all it is true of any place where guns are sold commercially we're not talking about exchanging with friends or and you know there are conversations to be had in terms of where that line is as well but you know if I wanted to give a gun to my daughter um I don't think she should have to go through a background check you know and so where where is that where is that line but there are people who are clearly in engaged in the business of buying and selling guns at all sorts of venues online on websites that I don't want to promote right now at these gun shows but the problem is if you turn them down at a gun show they'll go across they'll go on to the parking lot they'll go across the street into the parking lot of the gas station so there needs to be a law that and and this is what I think could be the biggest Improvement to the current system there needs to be a law that requires the commercial sale of guns how we Define it we can talk about it requires the commercial sale of guns to have a background to have background checks and that law would have a tremendous impact and it would um go a long way toward accomplishing again what we all want which is just to be safer so you're saying that at the moment there's no law that asks for background checks for commercial the commercial sale of guns no well commercial sales at federally licensed firearm dealers to get your federal firearm license you have to conduct a background check and those background checks are conducted thousands of times every day um the problem is you're some sort of prohibited per your uh convicted violent felon who's gotten out of jail you go into a gun store you try to buy a gun they you have to fill out a form they do that background check they say you know you're a convicted violent felon you're not allowed to have a gun you walk out of that store you walk down the street in Most states and many I'm not sure if it's most many states and uh you go to a quote gun show and that you that same person can buy a gun from a table or somebody walking around with with the same gun that they wanted those people at the gun show I'm saying the way to because some of those are you know those grandfathers fathers and their kids that I'm talking about and hunting and let's go and look you know I don't know if you went to like shows like that car shows gun shows whatever it is you know there's obvious they're people who are genuinely into it so I'm not saying that and if I just sell one gun to one per person I'm not even necessarily saying that that should be the case but I'm saying if those people go if people go to a gun show and are selling you know some threshold let's say you know more than five guns every six months if they're taking credit cards for their transactions if they're advertising that is a commercial sale and so those commercial sales have to be made the same as the commercial sale that would have gone down at the um at the gun store had that fictional person passed the background check okay so why isn't that in place already because people misconstrue a lot of things and a lot of the things we talked about um people misconstrue it as being a political debate over gun rights people um look at it you'll sometimes hear the slippery slope argument well first you want to do this and then you want to take my rights away then you have organizations again I believe on both sides of the issue kind of feeding that emotional Us Versus Them conversation you know there's so much language that's used like you know the gun nuts the you know it's like don't do that these are people who want you know what we want and so um as unfortunately as a result there's this it's in it's become impossible to change the political status quo because it's so it's so entrenched so it's just easy you know you can also say like why did nothing happen after you know insert horrific uh school shooting here you know and that's a that's a question you get a lot because people have gotten good people who are incentivized to maintain this as a political debate have gotten good at maintaining this as a political debate and as a result the American public isn't again getting the real story on this issue and like look I'm you you've done your homework and I'm talking to you and you're like wait that's why isn't that why isn't that the case um and it it's it's so it is at the end of the day so simple but that's testimony to how just effing crazy this issue is in terms of people you know making it into this emotional political debate hmm interesting okay so what I've seen in the news and what's been popularized is the emotional debate where it's like people shouldn't own guns period like take everybody's guns away because guns make the world more dangerous that's the one side of the story and then the other side is oh no guns make the world safer because you can protect yourself from the people who shouldn't have guns who have guns so that's I guess the politicized debate that's been going on that's probably like the most fundamental example of it yes and the little secret is the reality is both of those things are true and so let's talk about it yes gun rights organizations that you know aren't necessarily really concerned about the rights or certainly the well-being of individual gun owners yes um that got gun owning a gun presents a risk when you bring a gun into your house let's talk about there is there are scenarios where owning a gun is unsafe why would you not want to educate people about that scenario what you can do to mitigate the danger that's not a gun control conversation but that is that's an education conversation but it's a critically important conversation at the same time gun control Community you know a community that I helped to lead for a number of years um there is a right to own guns you're not going to get anywhere by trying to talk people out of that right and trying to and and trying to say nobody should own guns and you're just gonna perpetuate that that polit that political debate and even there are scenarios where guns make you safer I mean I you know I have a place way out in the sticks in the country and you know I know a lot of people up there a lot of friends that I have own guns and I get it and you know you're that there could be animals there could be um there there could be an intruder it may legitimately take a long time for with no local police department for the state troopers to get there you know is there a scenario where you can legitimately be safer to have a gun this is blasphemy to a lot of the people from the community or that I used to that I used to lead is there a scenario where a gun can make you safer yes so let's have both of those it's not cognitive dissonance let's have both of those conversations at the same time let's acknowledge there are real risks let's talk about what we can do to mitigate those risks and then let's acknowledge that people who own guns aren't all bad most of them aren't bad most of them are good people who want what we all want and our d and our decent people so let's you know let's acknowledge let's acknowledge that and let's talk about the the fact that there are people who derive real benefit and value um and fulfillment from owning guns and let's then that sets up the opportunity to have this conversation about you know things like background checks on all gun sales things like educating gun owners about um and it's not all gun sales by the way but background checks things about educating gun owners but right now like you said what you see in the news is just the people people don't dive as deep as you're diving and don't look for that Common Ground like you are so there's like all right time to do a gun control story queue up you know Dan Gross and whoever the other person is that you're gonna talk to and it just winds up kind of fitting into this mold that at the end of the day needs to be broken in order to do something about this issue yes I agree okay so so some other questions I had just out of curiosity do states that have stricter gun control do they have less gun violence in general you know so that's if you're talking to somebody who goes and leans on that argument chances are you're not talking to somebody who either fully appreciates this issue or is worse using numbers to [Music] um kind of undermine making some sort of genuine progress you can't just look at state state by state laws because you know it's a weakest link thing if I'm in New York and New Jersey has incredible that's it's not true as good laws but if New Jersey has incredibly weak laws I can just go right over the Border There Are Places on the board and there are all sorts of examples of this there's a whole thriving gun industry on the border of California and Nevada because California is strict well and so people who again those people who might want to traffic guns into impacted communities in California they'll get in the car and drive a few hours and go so you can't say that you know states with tougher gun laws have um have no difference in them amount of gun violence and and present that as a argument against anything that I just said you know until this point um with what I would view as positive intentions that was a totally reasonable response thanks okay we've got a couple of other questions to throw you away hit me I feel like if you've you've had practice though years and years of practice okay other countries are there other countries that have as many guns as the states but less crime yeah um there's some debate about that I I will say but you know because part of it is and again it's a it's a little bit of a red herring in terms of the conversation which is why music what you're asking me are never things that I use to justify any of the positions that that we talked about before I can tell you there are states with some with significant percentage of gun ownership like Israel and you know where everybody um up to uh you know has to spend two years in the Army um and uh Switzerland I understand has but they have way stricter laws in terms of background checks and all the kind of things that I'm advocating um you know and they're also more respectful of the risks you know as I understand in Israel your service weapon you know is either has to be or encouraged to be kept someplace outside of outside of the home so again it's not it's not the thing to focus on when you're trying to make the case for any of the uh for the two things that I'm advocating which are keep guns out of the wrong hands and educate gun owners about the risks and yeah there's a whole industry and it's part of that industry of people who you will talk to um hopefully is not as part of this hopefully you'll talk to somebody who's genuinely um you know well-intentioned in terms of trying to make our country safer but you know there are a lot of people out there who and and a good tests are the people who make make those points because that had in response to the things that I'm advocating because let me just be clear there is no connection between either of those two things and anything that I said prior to this that I know will make us all safer okay so the argument perhaps the argument where they're like look at this country there are more guns there and it's safer they're not taking into consideration the fact that these people are are educated differently on guns they're they're educated differently they have different laws in terms of who's able to get guns so ironically some of those some of those countries where that may rival the US I'm not sure any place passes the U.S um but but you know let's even say they do but at least rival the US um you know they they have much lower rates of gun control gun violence because they actually have the kind of laws that that I'm talking about right now in our country the problem is not primarily the number of guns at this point the problem is the hands that the guns are getting into whether it's unsupervised children somebody with suicidal ideation um or a straw purchaser who's funneling guns into the impacted communities that's those are the problems the problem is not you know so it's again that's used to kind of perpetuate this political domain saying slippery slope they just want to take all your guns away and so it becomes very convenient to say look at all these countries and they got by the way all this and I'm just not engaging on it the US does have certainly at least among the highest rates of gun ownership and the correlation that you see between the number of guns and gun deaths is definitely on the side of more guns results in more gun deaths just like more cars will result in more car deaths or more hammers will result in in more Hammer deaths but I don't engage on that because the fact is the fact there are you know 300 million plus guns out there in America we are not taking those guns away it is counterproductive to argue taking you know take taking guns away from anybody it's counterproductive because it distracts from the real things that we can do that the owners of those 300 million guns would listen to but aren't currently listening to because they think you're trying to take their their their guns away okay have there been laws implemented to restrict I'm gonna make sure I get my my words right but um the guns that like that they're like automatic you can shoot a whole bunch of them yeah so they're not those have been restricted right yeah those have been restricted to machine guns fully automatic guns have been restricted very heavily for a long time um the debate is over what are called assault weapons um and assault weapons like the AR-15 those are semi-automatic um and then also as part of that large capacity uh magazines where you can just so an automatic gun is where you hold down the trigger and it just fires a semi-automatic is where you have to pull the trigger each time individually and they have large capacity magazines and you know and that's that's what the uh the the debate is is over um and believe it or not that's also a debate that I think is not the right place to put our emphasis for for a variety of important reasons um let's just start with an important one but I don't think the most important one which is it's difficult to Define what an assault weapon is and where you you know and where you draw the line and people you know do people use AR-15s for hunting absolutely but what about target shooting and is that you know so that become and by the way my brother was shot with a semi-automatic gun with a high capacity magazine so I'm not just cavalierly saying this yeah you know if that person didn't have that gun there's a good chance my brother um you know wouldn't have been shot or wouldn't have been as previous but I'm just thinking about this in terms of how to have the biggest impact so there's a question in terms of how to define what is in a soluble and that winds up being you know uh a you know that's it Tucker freaking Carlson you know I went on his show and did an interview and all he wanted to talk about is like can you define an assault weapon I'm like I'm not here to talk about that I'm here to talk about keeping the guns out of the hands we all of the people we all he had no interest in talking about that because that's not what his viewers want to hear and that's not how he gets get gets rating so you know so I I like to first kind of put put that aside um then looking at it pragmatically and again I'm myself have had personal experience with the very unpragmatic side of this um the percentage of gun deaths and injuries even the percentage of mass shootings even the percentage of school shootings is relatively low in the case of the mass shootings and just tiny in terms of the overall toll of gun deaths in our country so the and and the word you know assault weapon what you'll usually hear is in the context of what the gun control Community says and the gun rights Community likes to um pair it back assault weapons ban we gotta ban these assault weapons problem is it has the word ban in it it makes it seem like we're coming for your guns it gives people a ground to stand on that's at least debatable in terms of the Second Amendment it's my right to own this gun well the second amendment can be you're already in a place where you've lost kind of the emotional Resonance of the argument instead and this is why I go back to what I said in the beginning let's talk not about how to keep certain guns assault weapons in this case from everybody from all people let's talk about how to keep every gun assault weapons and otherwise from the people who are most likely and already defined as most likely to harm and already defined as the most dangerous people so like a background check I don't care whether it's an AR-15 or a Saturday night special I care that a gun trafficker convicted felon can't walk into a you know a a gun show or go online or meet somebody in a parking lot and and buy it and and buy it and buy that gun okay you mentioned earlier and this is something I wasn't familiar with straw purchaser yeah um so straw purchaser is somebody who um I'm not I'm not saying you ever did this but um when one is 15 years old and and they need to get a beer in 7-Eleven um they uh they say somebody in the parking lot definitely done that by the gun and then and then sell them the beer give them the beer not no no no judgment no accusation but that person was a straw purchaser what happens with with guns is um people who can pass background checks very often when they're not getting it at places that don't require background checks we'll go and buy you know dozens of guns scores of guns sometimes in another state and bring them back and sell them um in the communities that are most impacted by gun bombs it goes back to the question you say before well in New York you know Chicago Illinois Chicago is the toughest gun laws and why do they have so much gun violence a big part of that is because of these straw purchasers they'll buy the guns they're middle people they'll buy the guns they'll the I think the technical term would be like a straw man straw woman whatever they are mostly men um purchaser who will buy that gun and then go and sell it and and make a profit and they're just like ridiculous examples of what happened so there's one gun store right on the outskirts of Chicago called uh but over the Chicago City Limit so this person can exist there called Chuck's Gun Shop and and Pistol Range where that is known to sell a high percentage of the guns that turn up on the streets of Chicago in the terrible toll of gun violence that happens there you know seemingly on on a daily basis and a big part of that is because of these straw purchasers and what Chucks is what I've always called um a a bad apple gun dealer because they're kind of spoiling it for everyone else a tiny percentage of gun dealers engage in that behavior where they are knowingly selling guns like you know sure I'll sell you these 20 guns and not ask a question because you can pass this background check knowingly selling guns that are winding up on the streets and causing uh all this gun violence so another thing in addition to crop cracking down on the straw purchasers is also cracking down on these unscrupulous uh these unscrupulous gun dealers who I mean it's not it's like the 80 20 rule on steroids like the 80 20 rule would be 20 of gun owners sell 80 of of crime guns it's more like five percent of gun dealers sell 95 of crime guns so if we can just do something to go after these gun dealers and crack down on straw purchasers that to me has always been one of the big opportunities to affect gun violence in these communities where and then so you can start to see how somebody who says well there's nothing we can do in Chicago in terms of gun control so let's not have this conversation because Chicago already has tough gun laws I just explain to you how yes Chicago is very tough gun laws but shocks is not covered the straw purchasers are not are not are not being dealt with and that is the reason why they have that gun violence okay that's interesting so do you have suggestions on how these straw purchases would be cracked down on yeah so one one aspect of it we've already talked about which is to make sure that everyone has to who's engaged in the business Commercial the business of selling guns has to do background checks so that so a straw purchaser can't walk into you know a gun show um can't go online and to to one of these websites that I will not advertise um and buy guns from strangers without a background check and if we did that that would have a very a very big impact and I'll tell you the state fact that is relevant is the states with the weakest laws in that regard are the states that are the sources of most of the crime guns in New York and Chicago and Detroit and the places that are um you know in a lot of smaller places I don't mean to just give the I love all three of those cities um you know but it's happening everywhere and it's happening because they call I-95 the firearm freeway because the guns come up from the States along the Eastern Seaboard that have weak gun laws the southern states around things like straw purchasers and background checks and they're brought up to you know Newark I'll pick on someone else or you know um other other places on the Eastern Seaboard that might have tougher gun laws so that's one thing that we can do and then the other thing that we can do is all out war on these unscrupulous gun dealers who are doing this knowingly throw real resources at it because like the numbers are there again five percent of gun gun dealers sell 95 percent of crime guns you know you wanna you you wanna like really focus on something bring the weight of the government down on something you know uh we have to leave no stone unturned in terms of going after those gun dealers that are literally knowingly supplying guns onto the streets and by the way giving a bad name to the 95 of gun dealers that sell zero crime guns okay so you could potentially identify crime guns and then if a whole bunch of them are coming from one place crack down on that place and that's how you do that and they have that info they have that info yeah that info exists that's weird yeah right yeah that's that's why that that to me has always been the you know possibly the biggest thing so what I get not frustrated because there's a lot of good conversation about things like you know changing the so you know the socioeconomics and the um systemic racism and um you know the oppression of you know people in these impacted communities um and that's right that's a conversation that has to be had um and then there are great programs like the violence Interrupters that go in and you know when it seems like there's a I don't want to like marginalize myself by saying beef but or at one point that was the like starting or there's been one shooting to kind of come in and intervene in somebody who might be a former gang member and and and kind of bring people together to prevent it from escalating into more these are very very important things I look at look at it as tent pulse um the Third Temple that does not get discussed as prevalently as the other two but I think as it relates to gun violence not a whole host of other things that are impacted by it by by um all the by systemic racism and and and and and other forms of Oppression um you know it's the it it doesn't get talked about and it would have on gun violence just as much as an impact if not more um than than either of those two things at least in the near time yeah okay well I think I think that summarizes your stance fairly well thank you very much for coming on uh is there anything else you want people to know or any websites you want people to go to or where people can find you before we end this part of the segment yeah um they can look me up at uh degross Pax on uh on Twitter um and uh yeah where the organization that I'm starting with a guy in the gun rights Community very prevalent uh activist in the gun rights Community it's called the center for gun rights and responsibility so you can just uh search that up and see the latest in terms of what's going on there and I want to thank you for first of all your intention of bringing the bringing people together and having a good conversation and that is consistent with certainly the way that I I look at look at this issue and for doing your research and being so prepared for this conversation and for yeah for letting me ramble and kind of get my get my points across so thank you Michaela well thank you that was very informative thanks again for coming on cool you have a good one after John Lott welcome to my podcast well thanks for having me on good to talk to you this should be a good conversation uh before we get started could you give a brief background about who you are and what it is you do hello my name is John Lott I'm president of the crime prevention Research Center I have a PhD in economics I've held uh teaching and research professorships at Stanford University of Chicago the Wharton business school Yale I was Chief Economist for the United States sentencing commission uh and then more recently I was senior advisor for research and statistics for the U.S department of justice so I've had both academic positions and positions in the federal government to deal with law enforcement type issues okay and then before I start hammering you with questions what are your views on gun control at the moment are there things that could be improved too many guns not enough guns can you give a brief background about just how you see gun control in America well I think unfortunately a lot of the gun control that we have right now primarily disarms the very people who need protection the most if my research convinces Me of anything it's people who are most likely victims of violent crime overwhelmingly poor blacks who live in high crime urban areas who are the ones who benefit the most from having the option to be able to go and protect themselves the police are very important but the police themselves understand that they virtually always arrive on the crime scene after the crimes committed and having a gun turns out to be by far the safest course of action unfortunately a lot of the gun control laws that we have make it very costly for poor people and discriminated against minorities so just give you one example from when I was just working in the federal government and that is you know we hear that the background check system has stopped 3.8 million prohibited people from be able to go and obtain a gun that's simply false what they should say is that there have been 3.8 million initial denials and over 99 percent of those are mistakes it's one thing to stop a felon from buying a gun it's another thing to stop somebody simply because they've been named similar to a felon from being able to go and buy a gun and the problem is is that mistakes overwhelmingly discriminate against black males and Hispanic males the error rate for black males is more than three times their share of the population and for Hispanic males it's more than two and a half times their share of the population and there's no reason why we should have these mistakes occurring private companies do background checks on employees all the time if they had an error rate that was 100th the error rate that the federal government has they'd be sued out of existence and yet you know I think this is a very reasonable fix why not make the federal government have to meet the same standards for doing background checks that private companies have to make but gun control Advocates will fight you tooth and nail against that and there are other issues too just look at the costs in in Washington DC where they're voting on us they have background checks in the private transfers of guns it costs 125 dollars to do a background check on on each gun that you're going to sell let's say you and I lived in Washington DC uh and I'm going to go and give you four guns it's just one person giving one other person Four Guns you're thinking just be one background check because you're the same person who's getting all the guns right but no they have it set up so that there has to be a separate background check done on each gun and so the total cost of making that one transfer is five hundred dollars provide me with a logical explanation for why they need to make it so incredibly costly for people going by guns it may not stop you or I from being able to go and get a gun but again the very people who need protection the most are being priced out of this you know Democrats will go and say you know we can't have uh uh voter IDs government issued photo IDs for for voting because that imposes too large of a burden on poor minorities well how does a 125 dollar fee affect it and that's not even the cost of getting the ID you have to have a government issued ID in order to go and buy a gun and then they have other licensing rules and other things that just make it very costly uh give me one other example and that is compare Illinois and Indiana okay uh Illinois a heavily Democratic State Indiana heavily Republican state in Indiana over 20 percent of the adult population has a concealed carry permit in Illinois it's three percent and and there's a simple reason for that in Illinois it costs about 450 dollars to go through the process to get a concealed carry permit in Indiana it's zero you look at the distribution the only types of people who go and get Concealed Carry Permits in Illinois are overwhelmingly white wealthy males who live in the suburbs in Indiana uh it's much more poor blacks and Hispanics who live in high crime urban areas who have been able to go and afford to go and protect themselves and you go down the list and in uh in Chicago up until very recently they banned any training facilities for getting a concealed carry permit so you're a poor black there they require 16 hours of trading you know if you don't have a car you have to go and borrow a car either two or four days because it's a 16 hour training that's there they don't allow you to take even a permanent concealed handgun on public transportation so what does that do it makes it it's like they went through the list 450 costs unable to take it on public transportation uh no training facilities allowed nearby you it's kind of like they went down a checklist to do everything they possibly can to make sure that the very people who need protection the most are the ones who are not able to do it and I I'll give you one last example there's two types two main types of concealed carry laws in the United States they're what we call right to carry laws which 42 of the states have which once you meet certain criteria you're allowed to carry you know you pay a fee you pass a background check you do your training and then there are eight states like New York and California where you have to provide a good reason to some public official why they should let you be able to go and have an option to carry a concealed handgun so take Los Angeles County okay where I was able to get a list of everybody who had gotten approved for getting a concealed handgun permit they only had like 216 Concealed Carry Permits out of an adult population of 8 million people but who do they give who do they decide has a good reason Nationwide about a third of concealed carry permit holders are women in Los Angeles County it's seven percent Nationwide 13 of concealed carry permit holders are black in Los Angeles County it's 5 percent 54 of Los Angeles County's population is Hispanic only six percent of the permit holders are Hispanic you know you think are women only stocked in the rest of the country and not being stalked in Los Angeles County don't they have good reasons that are given there and yet the public officials there who are who are overwhelmingly 100 Democrat don't seem to the only people that they think provide them with good reasons to be able to carry are basically wealthy politically connected white males overwhelmingly are the ones that they decide have good reasons why is it they say they care about poor and minorities they say they care about women but yet they don't seem to trust those very same people when they're asking for permission to be able to go and defend themselves and their families Okay so how should the government regulate guns like for these background checks how do they decide who should have access to a gun and who shouldn't well I mean you can go and have it so that people who have felony backgrounds violent felony backgrounds in particular can be stopped from me I'm going to go and get guts I'm no problem with that my point is simply if you're going to have these make it so the system works have reasonable fixes to the background check system you know otherwise you're you're you're making it so that the very people who need protection the most are being priced out of being able to do it and having mistakes look you can go and appeal when the federal government makes a mistake but virtually everybody's going to require a lawyer to help them go through the process fix the thing the starting costs for hiring a lawyer is like three thousand dollars on up okay why should somebody through no fault of their own simply because the federal government's looking at roughly phonetically similar names and similar birthdays than doing background checks why should they have to pay three thousand dollars or more to fix a mistake that's not their fault so you're saying keep the background checks but fix the inconsistencies right but here's the problem and that exactly but here's the problem I've been making this argument for 20 years but Democrats will fight you tooth and nail against a simple fix I want somebody to explain to me what reasonable explanation can you give for why 99 percent of the people who are stopped from buying guns because of background checks are mistakes give me give me an explanation for why you'd want a system where virtually everybody who gets stopped is not the guy you think you're stopping seems reasonable so how easy though for people who get stopped with background checks how easy is it for them to go to say a gun show and then get a gun there well I mean the vast majority of guns anybody who's a licensed dealer who's selling a gun any place has to go into a background check I don't know if you've ever been to a gun show but virtually everybody who's selling a gun there is a licensed dealer and they have to go through and do a background check that's there look we the federal government or I've been has done surveys of criminals to find out where they go and get their guns you're talking about maybe less than one percent maybe six tenths of one percent of felons get their guns from either gun shows or flea markets this is not a major source of guns look if you're where do you think the major source of guns for for criminals are it's drug deals drug dealers have guns simply because they have to go and protect their valuable property that they have it's not like a drug dealer can go to the police and say this other dealer stole my drugs can you help us get them back all right they have to go and set up essentially their own little militaries in order to go and protect that valuable property that they have so you know drug dealers like to make money and if they can make money selling drugs they do that if they can make money selling guns they do that too and you know uh it's if you think you're going to be able to stop criminals from buying guns any more easily then you can stop them from buying illegal drugs good luck with that I mean I give talks at universities I go and ask students you know if I give them a few days how many of them can go and buy different types of illegal drugs and I'm not saying they do this but you have maybe 80 percent of the students raise their hands and think that there's no problem that they're going to be able to do it yeah these drug dealers have very valuable property you know you look at a country like Mexico okay next door to us there um Mexico since 1972 has had only one gun store in the country it's located in Mexico City it's run by the military guns are extremely expensive the most powerful gun that you've been able to legally Buy in Mexico since 1972 is a 22 caliber short round rifle which is about the least powerful gun that you can go and buy in the United States and you know um only only about one tenth of one percent of Mexican adults is legally licensed to own a gun it costs like two thousand dollar fee just to go and apply for the process to go and get a get a gun to own in your home in Mexico uh you can't sell it to anybody even if you do get a gun the only people you can sell it back to is the federal government so you think boy they have incredibly strict gun control laws and yet Mexico has a murder rate six times higher than the murder rate that we have in the United States drug dealers in Mexico bring in drugs from around the rest of the world and they go and bring in weapons from around the world when I was recently testifying a few years ago in Mexico before the federal Senate and House you know it's amazing you go talk to law enforcement there they had found something like 15 000 hand grenades that they had confiscated from uh uh drug gangs down there do you think you go to American uh gun stores and buy hand grenades they had confiscated machine guns do you think you'd go to gun stores in the United States and buy machine guns no these are weapons some of them they stole from the Mexican military but lots of them they brought they brought in from around the world South America and Asia and other places like that and you know they have rocket launchers they have all sorts of other things because there's a huge amount of money involved in drug smoke that's there and so it pays for them to go and buy weapons to protect themselves not just from the government but also from other drug gangs that will try to steal their valuable property that's there if I could click my fingers right now and cause all guns in the United States to disappear and all illegal drugs how long do you think it would be before illegal drugs started coming back into the United States if you're in El Paso 20 minutes and how long before they'd go and bring in the illegal guns to go and protect that valuable property they'd bring them in at the same time they're not going to risk bringing in huge amounts of very valuable property that could be stolen from them and they want to protect them and so you know the notion that somehow you know you're going to be any more successful in stopping criminals from getting guns than you've been from stopping them from getting illegal drugs I just don't think is very serious and what people have to realize is what a huge percentage of murders in the United States are drug gang related over half the murders in the United States occur within two percent of the counts that's 60 of the 3140 counties in the United States account for over half the murders and if you look at what's called a murder map of those counties what you'll find is almost two-thirds of their murders take place within 10 block areas murders unlike most other countries murders in the United States are extremely heavily concentrated in very tiny areas within the United States you have you have three quarters of the counties in the United States that have either zero murders for one murder in a year but sixty percent have zero murders in any given year you know by the way those are the counties that tend to have the highest gun ownership rates in the United States but you know in any case uh if you're gonna deal with the murder problem in the United States you're gonna have to go and deal with drugs and that's a conversation I'm happy to have but uh I just mentioned one other thing and that is people have to realize that the vast majority of violent crime in the United States also doesn't involve guns 92 percent of violent crime in the United States has no connection with guns in any way so if you're going to go and solve violent crime you have to go and deal with violent crime General but if you're going to deal with murders you're going to have to go and deal with drug tests because they fight against each other all the time to try to control drug terms I've heard that and I could be wrong but I've heard that a lot of the guns used in crime in the states are bought through straw purchases purchasers is that true look one I don't believe that that's the case you look at surveys of people who are in prison that's not the case they buy them off the street they buy them from others that are there but here's the problem and that is they're close substitute ways for though them to go and get guts you know just as the discussion we were just having you know if I could go and cause all guns to disappear from the United States do you think do you think Newt guns will be brought in to protect the drug gangs that are there and if you think that definitely yeah okay so if you think that that's the case then you know even if you stop one way even if that was a significant way of doing it there are other ways that they're going to go and get the weapons that they need to protect their valuable property okay so you're suggesting well we keep the background checks but that it has to be fixed so that it's not randomly choosing people with similar names to people who've caused violent crimes right similar names and similar birthdays I mean I I don't know if you've ever bought a gun but you fill out something called a 4473 you put down your name your address your social security number your birthday your race your eye color you think they're using all that information but they're not they're the vast majority of checks just look at roughly phonetically similar names and similar birthdays and there's no reason why that should be the case unfortunately I've come to the conclusion that oh the people who are pushing these background checks really don't care about the background checks because they could get them passed tomorrow or today if they just made a few really simple changes make it so that uh the the federal government has to meet the same standards for doing background checks that private companies do pay for the checks out of General Revenue so here here's the general point if you believe that background checks reduce violent crime then you believe it reduces it for everybody not just the person who's going out of the way to go and obey the law that's there and also you think you want to encourage people to go and obey the law how does making somebody have to pay 125 dollars to go and do the background check encourage them to go and do that because you're essentially taxing them to go and do what you want them to do yeah go out of their way to do that so as an economist I would say look if everybody benefits everybody should pay and if you want to encourage people to do this both reasons tell me you should pay for it out of General Revenue if you could make those two changes fix the mistakes and make and deal with paying for it out of General Revenue if you think there are these big benefits and I I'm skeptical there are but if you think there are these big benefits you'd think they'd want to do that and yet and I've been telling them for 20 years they could get this passed right away but they refused to make those changes and to me I have to ask myself what are the arguments against these things the only arguments that I can think of against these things is that they want to make it costly they want to make it difficult they want to prevent poor minorities from being able to go and buy guns if you have another explanation in fact when we were setting this up I was hoping that we could have the gun control person on at the same time so that they could say what their explanation is for something like this because I never hear an explanation when I go and I bring up these concerns yeah well those are fair questions those are fair questions I may set these up in the future so that I have both people on at once but for now it's interesting I'm not criticizing each video I'm just saying I really want it's very hard to get debates on these types of things because gun control activists refuse to appear on at the same time and the main reason is is because they don't have to most the media doesn't make them have to go on debates do you think that people pushing that are just concerned with maybe kind of punishing people who want to own guns and saying okay you have to do these fees and we're not footing it and they're not even considering the fact that some people have less money I think I think that's right I think they're trying to make it as costly as possible for people to be able to go and get guns I'll give you another related example and that is uh look at these red flag laws that they have uh they're being pushed in fact uh it looks like right now the federal government's likely to uh be using a lot of money to encourage states to adopt these laws in the current 3.5 trillion dollar spending bill that they have what are the laws well these These are laws uh that are set up so that if you're concerned about somebody being a danger to themselves or others you can go and register a complaint a judge will see a piece of paper with the complaint and then they'll go and take away the person's gun that's there for some period of time maybe a month and then there'll be a hearing whether or not to make it permanent or not yikes okay uh so here's the deal we already have in all the states and it goes by different names often called Baker Act California is called 5150 where if you're concerned somebody's a danger to themselves or others you go to the police the person will undergo a 24-hour to 72-hour psychiatric evaluation where you'll have psychiatric experts there and then you'll have immediately following that a hearing where if you can't afford it a lawyer will be provided for you okay and the judge has a whole range of options then he can go and require that you get voluntary treatment uh he can go and take away your weapons if he's concerned about that or he can go in the most extreme case and involuntarily commit somebody virtually always all these things are used for concerns about suicide that's yes the thing is the red flag laws don't involve Mental Health Care Experts okay uh if you can't afford a lawyer tough you know you have to you go in on your own in fact you look at these cases in the red flag law uh it costs about ten thousand dollars to go and do a hearing the only thing that happens Under the Red Flag laws is that you lose your ability to have a gun well I may want to have a gun I may care about it for protection but ten thousand dollars I mean ten thousand dollars is a lot of money there and so the vast majority of people who go through that process uh don't get a lawyer when they have to go to court uh and it makes it pretty hard when you're up against lawyers and you don't have a lawyer yourself representing you uh to be able to go and win those types of cases but it's it's not because the people think that they're really a danger or whatever it's just that they don't even if they can't afford it but here's the problem is that the type of change that they want to make can actually have the opposite effect of what they'd like to have what they claim they want to have happen I have a very close friend of mine uh who those watched her husband be murdered in front of her by one of her stalkers and um if you have these types of red flag looks that are there let's say a friend of hers a relative neighbor they say look she's really depressed okay I mean anybody would be you've just had your loved one watched your loved one murdered in front of you by one of your stalkers that are there and they know that she has a gun and so they could go and say look I'm worried she's depressed I'm going to she has a gun I'll make a complaint the only thing the judge sees when he makes the decision whether or not to take away the person's gun is that written complaint well in her case if you put yourself in that situation you've just had one of your stalkers murdered your husband how do you think you'd feel if your ability to go and protect yourself was going to be taken away from do you think that'd make you even more depressed and what does that do to your incentive to go and talk to people to share your feelings with others if you worry that somebody might misinterpret it simply being able to go and talk to people it's very helpful when you're incredible extremely depressed like that just being able to share your feelings know that you're not alone can make a huge difference in terms of how people get through this type of thing and yet the gun control Advocates have set up a process in uh 18 states now where simply could be a very well-meaning person puts in a complaint judge hears nothing from the person who's the complaint is being lodged against and you know he may be well-meaning himself he sees this person's depressed they have a gun yeah but if you have the process that we've had these Baker Act type things she could go in there she gets evaluated by a psychiatric expert she can explain to the expert why it's important that she still be able to go and defend herself and even if she couldn't convince that person she goes to court and if she can't afford a lawyer one is provided for her and she can make an argument to the judge so you have to ask yourself why did gun control Advocates push a situation where it would make people actually afraid to go and talk to people you take police officers police officers tend to commit suicide at a relatively High rate compared to the general population they tend to be depressed in a relatively High rate compared to the rest of the population why I mean they see horrible things on the job all the time do we want to make it so police officers are afraid to go and share their feelings with other people if you take away a police officer's gun what do you think you do to their job you've taken away their job that's there they lose their job if you take away their guts do we want to make it so the police officers are afraid to go and talk to people and yet again I think these are simple reasonable changes okay pay for a lawyer if a person can't afford it make that include Mental Health Care Experts into process and have mental health care experts evaluate the person before you go and you have a hearing don't have the the judge simply making a decision based only on seeing the written complaint and not being able to hear the other person's side of the story when he's making that type of decision that's there you know and besides if I'm really concerned about somebody committing suicide really concern is the only solution to take away their gun is there like no other way for these people to go and kill themselves I mean go talk to Jeffrey Epstein if you don't think that there's other ways for people to go in and kill themselves uh and so you know it's I think a lot of this is just to demonize the gun it's just to say well if you take away the guns Situation's solved there's no problem at that point and I think that's really dangerous I think that's really misleading for people and I think there's evidence out there that in fact you increase suicide rates and I think for the reason that I was just mentioning that you make it so that people now are afraid to go and share their feelings and talk to other people what do you think of people who think that there needs to be more education surrounding how you store guns and safety with guns and that that's one of the problems with American gun control at the moment is just lack of Education I have no problem with people being educated about it but here's the thing I think if you look at the numbers Americans are extremely responsible with regard to guns uh you can go to the Centers for Disease Control website uh their uh fatal injury report data that they have and what you'll find for let's say kids under age 10 in the United States for the most recent year there was 36 accidental gun deaths in the United States there's 36 do you wish it was Zero yeah sure I wish it was Zero but when you consider half of American homes have guns okay um and you go and you look at anything else when you have like 95 kids under five who grounded in uh in five gallon water buckets you have uh more than that who drowned in bathtubs in the homes so if I were to go and just ask you beforehand and say okay guns are owned in half of American homes what is your guess that children under age 10 died from accidental gunshots my guess is your number would have been much higher than Thursday yeah yeah and part of the reason is is whenever these things happen they get national news coverage and it makes people think that they're more common than they are I think to some extent but you know uh and even when you look at those 36 uh about two-thirds of those are not Shots by other children they're Shots by adult males usually in their mid to late 20s who have criminal records who have in many cases it's illegal for them to own guns and are often drug addicts or alcoholics so you know I can go and say we want to educate people but a lot of these guys it's illegal for them to own the gun to begin with and so if I go and pass a gun lock law is it going to affect these guys and a gun Lock's not going to affect an adult male particularly an adult male criminal who's unlikely to go and obey the law to begin with to be able to go uh and do it it's not going to stop him from the accidentally firing his gun but here's the problem and that is their costs and benefits I I mean as an economist we're always weighing trade-offs with different things and so I go and pass a law that requires people have to lock up their guns in their homes okay which is one of the things that's involved with this it doesn't make sense for everybody to do it if I live in a high crime urban area I may want to have quick access to a gun that's there delaying it may make it so that I'm not able to and defend myself and my family you have to weigh the risks of the gun in the home versus the fact that people aren't going to be able to go and defend themselves and often when these laws get passed you'll see about a five percentage Point drop in gun ownership that occurs right when these safe storage laws get passed and a lot of that has to do with the exaggerated stories that occur in the media at that time about the dangers of having guns in the home and so look I mean I have five kids I don't want anything to happen to any of my kids but I would go and argue that the vast majority of Americans are extremely careful look the risk of a child dying from an accidental gunshot in the home is less than the rest of them dying from light nothing strikes did I go and tell my kids not to go in an open field with an umbrella when it's lightning outside yeah sure there's sensible things you try to go and do I would just argue I think looking at the data that the vast majority of Americans are actually behaving fairly responsibly and that unfortunately this gets back to your point before about whether it's a lot of these laws are just trying to make it cost for people to be able to go and own guns and I think this is just another example of it they try in many different ways to do that okay last question do do states that have stricter gun laws does that reduce gun crime no it has the opposite effect let me give you just a simple example just to think about this is an extreme case but it applies generally and that is can you name me one place in the world that's banned either all guns or all handguns and seen murder or homicide rates go down just one place I'm talking about before and after because there's all sorts of reasons why different places differ uh in terms of crime rates uh yeah I can't find a single place every single time murder rates go up you think out of Randomness once or twice it would go now uh you'd think particularly if you believe guns on net are bad you would think for sure it should go down every single time and yet every single time you know Americans know about what happened in Chicago in Washington DC when we had handgun bans there and the murder rates went up gun control Advocates although will say well that really wasn't a fair test because unless you go and you ban guns every place uh people can still go and get guns from Maryland or Virginia or from the rest of Illinois or from Indiana the problem is that doesn't explain why the murder rates went up it may explain why it didn't fall as much as they were originally predicting it was going to do but they were able to get the guns from those other places to begin with before the ban went into effect and so but here's the problem and that is and this applies to gun control laws generally and that is you have to be careful when you pass a law that you're not going to be primarily disarming law-abiding citizens relative to criminals you may take some guns away from criminals but if it's mainly in this case law abiding citizens turning in their guns obeying the laws so you're primarily disarming the victims relative to the criminals you actually can make it easier for criminals to go and commit crimes and so you see increases and so when this applies to any of these things the background check discussion that we were having if it primarily because of these mistakes and these costs and other things primarily disarms law-abiding citizens relative to criminals you can actually have the opposite effect of what you'd like to have happen in these cases and so you know um you know I I think if you look at the serious statistical work I've been an academic I've published over 120 peer-reviewed articles and journals uh I think if you look at the serious work to answer your specific question you find that the states that have stricter gun control laws tend to have uh higher murder rates higher violent crime rates and you know it's not just that you look at concealed carry laws there's a huge difference in across States in terms of the percentage of the adult population with concealed handgun permits uh uh there as I mentioned there's basically these two types of States these right to carry states and these uh May issue states in the May issue States you're talking about literally a just a couple few percentage points tenths of a percentage point of the adult population with a permit on average for the rest of the states you're talking about nine percent or so of the adult population with permits uh and that was last year my guess is it's probably about 10 right now and so you know uh and anyway but what you find is that those states that make it easier for people to go and get concealed handgun permits particularly those states that make it easiest for poor and minority people the people who are most likely victims of violent crimes to be able to go and defend themselves they have the the biggest drops in violent crimes as more permits are issued you see greater drops in violent crime there's a reason why police strongly support concealed carry laws you look at surveys of police officers you'll find like 95 percent of police in a survey by police one which is about 450 000 members 380 000 of them are full-time law enforcement the other seventy thousand are retired support relatively easy access to concealed handgun permits for people uh you know they see the importance in their own lives of of being able to go and use a gun and they're strongly supportive of private citizens being able to do it uh you know you look at another survey from them where they asked them how important is it for reducing crime for law-abiding citizens to have guns 76 of police officers think that private ownership of Guns is either extremely important or very important in terms of reducing crime okay it's a lot so you know these are the people that have to deal with these situations all the time and they so okay wow I think that that settles it for me I think I'm good I've asked you the questions I wanted to ask you and thank you very much for coming on if you want to direct people to either follow you online or attendee websites they should know about where do they go well our our website is crimereesearch.org crime research.org we're basically a group of academics as I mentioned I've had positions in a number of universities but we have Arthur Berg at Harvard uh Bill Landis at the University of Chicago uh Scott Armstrong at the Wharton business school others who have expertise in different areas uh you know we know where the data is and that's what we try to put out regularly there so and people if they go to crimereesearch.org they can sign up for our email list uh once every two weeks we send out an email so that people can see the latest research that we've been doing on these different topics very cool okay well thank you very much for coming on I appreciate your time thank you [Music]

Dan Gross’s background.

Dan's stance on gun control.

Dan’s suggestion on gun control.

Finding the balance with gun usage.

Why Dan was vilified in certain communities.

Dan’s thoughts on who should own guns.

The gun show loophole.

The reason behind a gun show loophole.

The politicized gun debate.

Do states with stricter gun control have less gun violence?

Comparing gun access between the states and other countries.

The REAL problem with guns according to Dan.

The assault weapon debate.

Straw purchasers.

Gun dealers and crime guns.

Dan's thoughts on how to crack down on straw purchasers.

John R. Lott Jr.'s background.

John's view on gun control.

The sad reality of gun control according to John.

Inequality in gun control.

John’s perspective on legal gun access.

Where felons purchase their guns.

Statistics on gun purchase.

A surprising fact of crime in the US.

Straw purchasers.

John's suggestion to change background checks.

Red flag laws.

John's perspective on gun education.

John’s thoughts on children dying from domestic gunshots.

The relationship between gun control and gun crime.

John’s advice on governmental gun control.

Find more John Lott on CrimeResearch.org.