Gun Control And Missing Facts “€“ With Professor John Lott: Contrary to what the mainstream media reports, statistics actually support conservative views on gun control. Tune in to learn some important facts you may have missed!

Air Date: 12/10/2019

Guest: John Lott

On-air Personalities: David Barton, Rick Green, and Tim Barton

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Transcription note:  As a courtesy for our listeners’ enjoyment, we are providing a transcription of this podcast. Transcription will be released shortly. However, as this is transcribed from a live talk show, words and sentence structure were not altered to fit grammatical, written norms in order to preserve the integrity of the actual dialogue between the speakers. Additionally, names may be misspelled or we might use an asterisk to indicate a missing word because of the difficulty in understanding the speaker at times. We apologize in advance.

Faith and the Culture

Rick:

You found your way to the intersection of faith and the culture, it’s WallBuilders, Live we’re talking about today’s hottest topics on policy, faith and the culture. My name is Rick Green, I’m a former Texas Legislature and I’m here with America’s premier historian David Barton, founder of WallBuilders. Tim Barton is with us national speaker and pastor and president of WallBuilders. All three of us, you can find out more about at our website wallBuilderslive.com. If you’re wondering what WallBuilders stands for? That comes from the Old Testament scripture in Nehemiah that says, arise and rebuild the walls that we may no longer be a reproach.

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Alright, guys later in the program, prolific author and famous professor for just, I mean blowing away myths out there about guns and economics, John Lott is going to be with us a little later and we’re going to dive into some details, because we need to know that data and we need to know the truth if we’re really going to be able to defend what we believe in.

David:

Yeah, and knowing the truth and knowing the data really is big. There is a statement the Thomas Jefferson gave to his nephew back in the day. It’s a statement that atheist and others particularly loved the quote part of the statement where the Jefferson says to his nephew Peter Carr, question with boldness even the existence of God.

Rick:

See that proves Jefferson is atheist.

Why Question the Existence of God?

David:

No, no, you read the rest of the paragraph. He says, because if there’s a God, you need to know why, you need to be able to prove that, you need to be able not just to have blind fear and blind faith, you need to have reason behind that. And so he says, if you’ll question whether there’s a God, then you’ll be able to defend that when people challenge to say there is no God, you say, yes, there’s because A, B, C, D,E right on through. Well, a lot of times, we as maybe Christians, as conservatives, we have kind of rhetorical hyperbolic answers like on guns.

Rick:

Well the Second Amendment defense, am I right to have guns?

David:

Yeah, but what if all the data is against that? Or what if the truth is different? We want to follow truth.

Tim:

When we live in a culture where I mean and you can pick whatever topic you want. You mention guns, you can pick any topic. People tend to be more led by their feelings, by their personal experience, by the thoughts, while you know just to me, it seems well I just feel, well, here’s what I think it’s very much a subjective reality that people want to live in. But the world we live in is not a subjective reality, there’s objective truth and God made things to work a certain way, there are absolutes in the world God created.

An Absolute Truth Exists

An absolute truth does exist and this is where you can look at metrics and data. So whether we talked about socialism, whether we talked about the pro-life movement and abortion, whether we talked about the Second Amendment and guns, whatever topic you pick, you always should look and say, okay, what is the data that is there?

Now we own WallBuilders are very unapologetic: that we want to look at things from a biblical, from a constitutional, from a historic point of view and this is because we want to find what is true and so we always want to get biblical guidance. We always want to say, okay, historically, what have we done and why and constitutionally why was it set up this way? But in a pursuit of truth, you’re always looking for not just what do I think or what do I feel, but what is true? And what is true should guide the conversation, it should guide what we think, how we feel, what we’re going to do. But we live in a culture that just doesn’t promote pursuing truth, it’s much more about how do you feel about the situation?

Look at the Metrics

David:

We do want truth and one of the things that stand out about truth Tim as you mentioned earlier is metrics. If it is true, there are stats that will verify that and hold that up. And that’s one of the things we’ve seen recently. There’s a great professor who’s come out with stats showing one of the things that many conservatives believe in and that is that gun control is not a good deal, but interesting to see the stats that now backed it up. The principle has been there all the way through, we’ve had that principle for 200 years in the Constitution. But now there’s modern stats that prove the principle to be true.

Rick:

What a better place to get those stats and accurate information on the issue of guns and gun violence then John Lott. Professor John Lott will be with us when we return. You’re listening to WallBuilders Live.

Front Sight Handgun Training Course

Hey friends! Rick Green here, from WallBuilders Live! What do Dennis Prager, Larry Elder, Ben Shapiro, Rick Green, Tim Barton, David Barton – what do all these folks have in common other than the fact that they’re conservative commentators that defend the Constitution and educate America on the Constitution?

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And, you can go with us! We’re headed back out.

Constitution Crash Course

We’re going to have a great time out there as the WallBuilders family and if you’re a supporter of WallBuilders, we have an amazing deal for you. It”€™s actually going to cost you 1/10th the normal price to attend this two-day handgun training because you”€™re going with us. And, you”€™ll also get the Constitution crash course. I”€™ll be teaching on the Constitution, you”€™ll get the intellectual ammunition that you need to defend the Second Amendment and our Constitution. As well as getting physical training on how to defend yourself and your family.

And, this is for everyone – guys, gals, everyone should take this class. No matter how much you”€™ve shot your whole life or if you”€™ve never touched a gun, learn how to defend your family. We”€™re going to be going several times throughout the year and we would love to have you be a part of that. Check it out at RickGreen.com today to find out the dates, get all the specifics, and get all of your questions answered. Check out RickGreen.com today to join us on this Front Sight trip for both your constitutional and handgun defense training.

Welcome Professor John Lott 

Rick:

Welcome back to WallBuilders Live, thanks for staying with us. I am so excited to have Professor John Lott with us, author of numerous books on economics, on the courts, on the data of the truth and lies about guns in America and around the world. Someone I’ve been quoting since I was in the legislature many years ago and had the chance to watch his presentation out of front-side a couple weeks ago and it was just eye-opening. John Lott, it’s an honor to have you, sir, thanks for coming on.

John:

Oh well, thanks very much for having me on.

Rick:

Well, man, thanks for all of your work. You know, you’ve done books on the importance of how we choose our judges, how we’ve dumbed down the courts. You’ve done books on more guns, less crime, the data that that you put together just absolutely incredible. And when you spoke, you know, when we got to visit a little bit a couple of weeks ago, it just was mind-blowing to me, you just picked a part all of these, you know, I say famous, really infamous quotes that the Left uses in their war against guns in America and showed how faulty it is.

Thank you for first of all doing the hard work that it takes to dig into those numbers, but then also for speaking out. You’re on a lot of radio shows and TV programs doing this, but your work is vitally important and we definitely want to also talk about your organization, Crime Prevention Research Center because that’s where you you’re able to get this information put together.

The Left”€™s Faulty “€œFacts”€

John:

Right, well thanks. Yeah, well, I mean I’ve been an academic most of my life. I’ve had positions at the Wharton Business School, University of Chicago, Stanford, Yale, going through numbers is what I did. You know, that’s what I do and I was able to meet over the years a number of good academics at other universities. So on our board for the Crime Prevention Resource Center, we have people that we work with at Harvard, the Wharton Business School, University of Chicago, University of Michigan, who know where the numbers are on crime type issues. And that’s what we try to do.

There’s so much misinformation that’s out there in the media. The media, you know, certain things fit their template, there they go with it unquestioningly, even if the people can’t kind of back it up with any types of, you know, proof that their numbers that they have are correct, they don’t even ask for it. But”€¦

Rick:

And that misinformation has an impact on our lives because it leads to bad policy, right? They get people believing these lies about guns and about the use of guns and that it turns into policy that then disarms people from being able to defend themselves. And if our real goal is if we’re all outraged about the mass shootings, we all, you know, don’t want to see that happen, we need the data to be able to determine what is the actual solution that will work and that’s why you know what you do.

Mass Public Shootings

John:

Right. Well, so let’s give one example. You just mentioned mass public shootings, I think and I talked about this after we’ve gone through a lot of related numbers in my talk. One claim that’s out there and I think it’s had a huge impact on the debate is that the United States is somehow unique in terms of mass public shootings, that we somehow lead the rest of the world in terms of this.

And go back and you can see during Obama’s administration, the President at the time would make 30 some comments claiming that in fact was the case and when people would ask the Obama White House for proof, they would go and point to the study by this guy named Adam Lankford who is at the University of Alabama. And I would ask him when his study first started getting attention, I would go and ask him for, you know, his study and he wouldn’t give it to me”€¦

Rick:

The actual data, at the back of the conclusions?

John:

Right. But I wanted to see the whole study, but he wouldn’t give it to me. And I asked him for the list of cases, I said, okay well, you claimed to found all the mass public shootings in the entire world over 47 years from 1966 through 2012, can you give me a list of those attacks? And he wouldn’t give it to me. And I said, well look, I don’t even, a mass public shooting that he was looking at are cases were four more people have been shot to death, in a public place not involving some other type of crime like a robbery for example or something where the government did.

Something to Worry About

And I say, okay well, you know it tell me how you found some of these cases at least, even if you won’t give me the list. I don’t know how to find cases let’s say from Africa in the 1960s, where four people were shot to death or from Bolivia in the 60s or 70s. Tell me how you found them, and he wouldn’t even do that.

And I would get calls from places like The Washington Post, asking me what I thought about his study? And I said, well, I can make some comments. But obviously, you have a copy of it, could you share it with me? And they’d say, well, he’s told us that only we could share it with other media people, we”€™re not allowed to go and share it with researchers. And I would point out to them that that should be something that they should worry about that he’s not doing that.

But in any case, we finally two-and-a-half years ago, decided to bite the bullet and spend about $70,000 trying to collect studies, cases from around the world. We only looked at the last 15 years, the other 47 years that he looked at because as I say, I saw no clue how to find cases in the 60s, 70s and 80s and many parts of the world. But anyway while”€¦

Rick:

And he’s still not willing to share how he supposedly came up with that either, right? I mean that’s”€¦

Adam Lankford”€™s Missing Data

John:

He hasn”€™t. He still has not told us how he’s found those cases. So anyway, we went out looked at just last 15 years. He claims that he has 202 mass public shooters outside the United States over 47 years, we found using the exact same definition, 3,081 shooters in just 15 years of the 47 years.

Rick:

Say that again. Now he claimed 200 in 40 something years, you found more than 3,000 in just 15 years?

John:

That’s right.

Rick:

And that’s outside the US, that’s around the world?

John:

Right. And so rather than the United States making up supposedly 31% of the world’s mass public shooters, we make up 1%.

Rick:

Wow!

John

And the United States is 4.6% of the world population, but 1% of the shooters, we’re way below the average. You have countries like France and Belgium and Finland and Switzerland and particularly Russia and Norway as well as other smaller European countries like Serbia and what have you that have higher rates of mass public shootings, have more murders from mass public shootings, have a higher murder rate and casualty rate from mass public shootings than we have here in the United States.

Rick:

Well, now wait, wait, wait, professor Lott, I’m confused because President Obama and all the late-night host all said this doesn’t happen anywhere else. It only happens in the US, right that’s the lie?

It is a Lie.

John:

It is a lie; and, the thing is you just don’t hear news stories about these things. I mean we may have heard about the New Zealand shooter, obviously earlier this year, but most people don’t know that within 24 hours, less than 24 hours of that, there was a big school shooting in Brazil. There was another shooting that occurred in the Netherlands. These things are occurring all around the world. We just don’t get news coverage of these cases from the rest of the world. The rest of world hear is about our cases, but we don’t hear about their cases. I mean you have shootings in Europe. They get less attention in the rest of Europe then they hear about our shootings that occur in Europe.

And part of that is it just hits the template of what media around the world do, but it creates a real misimpression. Because a lot of these countries have very strict gun control. France, just in one year in 2015, France had more casualties from mass public shootings, 532 then the United States had during the entire eight years of the Obama presidency. It was 532 to 527 and France”€¦

Rick:

One year versus eight years?

John:

Right. Yeah, just one year and they have a population one-fifth what we have here in the United States and yet they had more casualties. You have to adjust also for per capita rate, you know, be like taking Delaware or something and comparing it to the rest of the United States. Some of these countries have very small populations.

A Look at Europe

So, if you want to go and look at Europe as a whole, that would be fine. But to go and pick just a country like Norway which has less than, it may have like 4 million people on it, France is a large European country, but they have 60 million people.

Rick:

So back up on France real quick and just in general, because I don’t know much about their gun control laws, so they had more”€¦

John:

So it varies in gun control laws. In France, basically, semi-automatic guns are banned. Most of guns owned in the United States are semi-automatic guns.

Rick:

Wow!

John:

You know, it can take a year to go through the process to be able to get approved to have a gun in France.

Rick:

And yet with those gun control laws in one year, they had as many shooting deaths as we had in eight years?

John:

Many casualties, murders and woundings. You know, just in one attack, the concert hall attack in November, 2015, they had 130 people killed. That’s more people in one attack there then, I mean you can add up several different of the largest attacks in the United States and you will just even the like the three largest won’t even get to that.

Rick:

We’re going to have to make this a series because there’s so much more I want to ask you. Let me move real quick to”€¦ now, first of all, my conclusion from what we’ve discussed so far is that this is not a US only problem, this is a world problem, it happens in other countries even worse than it happens here. So let’s move to, okay well, if it’s a problem in multiple countries, there are multiple ways to respond to this.

Take a Look at Mexico

Take how Mexico respond to it. You just did an article on this, I shared it on my Facebook page, you know, where you compared. Okay, they used to have similar freedoms that we have when it comes to defending yourself 50 years ago, but then they instituted gun control. Now how are they doing on stopping this kind of violence?

John:

Alright. Well, up until 1972, Mexico actually had fairly liberal gun laws, it was guaranteed in the Constitution that you could carry a gun with you when you’re outside your home. Since 1972, they’ve only had one gun store in the country. Then it’s run by the military, guns are extremely expensive. Only about 1% of the adult population in Mexico is legally licensed to own a gun. You’re only allowed to keep a gun in your home. The most powerful rifle that you’re allowed to buy in Mexico is a 22 caliber short round.

Even if you move houses, you’re not allowed to transfer your gun from your old home to your new home without getting a special temporary permit from the Department of Defense in Mexico. And it’s only a one-time transfer that you’re allowed between those residences when you move. Otherwise, it’s a felony to ever take your guns outside of your home. And”€¦

Rick:

It sounds Beto O’Rourke’s dreamland. I mean, this sounds like exactly what you would love to have”€¦

John:

A lot of the Democrats would think”€¦

Rick:

Yeah, how’s that work for him?

Criminals Easily Get Guns

John:

Well, I mean now the Mexican murder rate is over twice what it was before when the gun control laws were instituted there. And you know, this year, Mexico is going to have a murder rate that looks like it’s going to be six times higher than the murder rate in the United States. Up through the first 9 months of the year, they had 26,000 people who had been murdered. I mean this is a country that has a much smaller population in the United States, it’s less than 40% of our population. And yet they have a lot more murders than we have here in the United States.

So basically, what’s happened is that the criminals are able to easily get a hold of guns and the law-abiding citizens who obey the laws are disarmed and they’re at the mercy of the criminals that are there.

Visit John Online: CrimeResearch.org

Rick:

And the turning point and you pointed this out in your article was the federalization of all the gun laws and when these federal law started in the early 1970s, it ended up disarming as you said that the law-abiding citizens and of course, the criminal is not going to obey those laws and it’s led to chaos. But that’s the exact formula that the Left wants to put in place in the US and pushes for with all of these gun control laws. Which is why knowing these things and having this data is so important for voters to know and for candidates frankly, for those running for office and educating those that are in legislatures across the country.  crimeresearch.org is the website. crimeresearch.org.

John, but I know all your books are available on Amazon, is that where you recommend people go or can they get them at your website?

John:

Oh yeah, well, we just have links to places like Amazon, but sure yeah, they can find it. I mean there’s lots of stuff that you and I have been talking about now, plus a lot more at crimeresearch.org

Rick:

In the books, I mean there’s the war on guns, there’s the bias against guns, there’s your economics book on called Freedomanomics. I mean, there’s so many good resources there. We got to get you back, man, I’d love to have you on a regular basis, so much great information. I really encourage people to go to your website, support what you’re doing and look forward to having you back again soon.

Democratic Presidential Candidates and Gun Control

John:

Thanks. Well, I’m glad you’re out there. And obviously, with the debate that’s going to be coming up in the next year, you know, any indication all the Democratic presidential candidates have pretty strong views about banning many types of guns and I think making it very difficult for people to own guns for protection.

Rick:

Yeah, no doubt. And folks, you can also see a professor Lott Live at front side on a regular basis come with us on one of our constitutional defense trips and get a chance to learn to defend yourself and also learn to defend the Second Amendment and learn the truth about all these lies that have been propagated in our culture over the last few decades. That”€™s Professor John Lott. Stay with us, we’ll be right back with David and Tim Barton.

America’s Hidden History

DAVID:

Hi, this is David Barton.

TIM:

And, this is Tim Barton, and we want to let you know about a series that’s happening right now on TBN on Thursday night. TBN is the Trinity Broadcasting Network. Every Thursday night, there’s a series that we’ve filmed called America’s Hidden History.

And, this season is called “€œAmerica’s Hidden Heroes.”€ The reason is, we highlight heroes from American history. For years we’ve been focusing on the forgotten history and heros of the nation.

And now, we have a TV show just highlighting some of those heroes.

DAVID:

These are inspiring stories about some of the greatest people maybe you’ve never heard about. We go on location to the sites and show you where the events happened. It’s the stories of folks like Bronco Charlie, Stagecoach Mary, Jedediah Smith, Robert Smalls, and so many inspiring folks.

TIM:

Now, this happens every Thursday night, and the time is gonna be different based on where you live. Either way, we think this is something that will so encourage and inspire you in learning some of these great stories from America’s Hidden History.

Blowing Holes in the Media”€™s Myths

Rick:

Welcome back to Wallbuilders Live, thanks for staying with us. A special thanks to Professor John Lott for joining us today, as well we’ll have links to his website crimeresearch.org, so you can go there to learn more as well. Back with David and Tim Barton. Now and guys, man, we’ve talked about Second Amendment a lot on the program, we talked about just the common sense of making sure you’re not you know preventing law-abiding citizens from defending themselves, but it is nice to know the data and realize wow, the myths that the media has been propagating about the United States being the only place where this stuff happens and far worse than everywhere else, he just blows holes in that.

Tim:

And guys, I never would have guessed that the US is only 1% of mass shootings when we have, or right over 4% of the world’s population and we’re only 1%, so we have less proportionally than the rest of the world. I mean, again I never would have guessed this just from what we see in the news, even from conservative outlets and actually, I mean, John Lott is a guy that we followed for a while, his book more guns, less crime, several things that he’s done, articles.

We have been impressed with his research and speaking of his research, we appreciate the fact that he does document and then show you where he got his information from as opposed to the professor that he references, right, the Obama administration is referencing all these mass shootings.

Always Check the Source

And he says, hey, I’d like, goes to professor, I’d like to see some of your research. Professor says, yeah, I’m not going to show it to you. Well, okay, how did you find out about these nations back in the 1960s? Yeah, not going to tell you. Well, it communicates to me very boldly, very loudly. It’s very telling when someone says, I’m not going to tell you my sources, I’m not going to show you where my information came from. You have to ask the question why and what does that say about the viability and credibility of the project if you are making all these claims and you can’t show where it came from.

One of the things when we work with high school students and college students, one of the very first things we tell them is always check the source. Always go back and confirm that what you’re hearing is true, right. Kind of like what the Bereans did the book of Acts in the Bible where the Apostle Paul was talking to them and it says, they searched the Scriptures daily to make sure that what Paul was telling them was true.

You always want to confirm your sources, even if you trust somebody, you trust, but you verify. And anytime you have an outlet that will not let you see the sources, in fact, he was telling other news outlets don’t share my information with this professor.

Gun Control and Missing Facts “€“ With Professor John Lott

That tells you a lot about the situation or the information they’re promoting when they won’t give you sources, probably not something I want to rely on, which is why we love John Lott the fact he will give you so much information. Highly encourage people, check out the website, get some of his books. Very, very different information what we see in the news media and it does give us a lot of encouragement for the Second Amendment in America.

Rick:

Well, we appreciate professor John Lott for being with us today here on WallBuilders Live. Thank you for listening today. And once again one encourage you to stop off at wallbuilderslive.com and consider making that one-time or monthly donation, is what makes the program possible for us to bring people like John Lott to you to educate, equip and inspire citizens all across the nation and you get to be a part of that when you make that contribution.

Thanks so much for listening. You’ve been listening to WallBuilders Live.