So much for the fear of guns at universities

Without anyone realizing it, guns are brought onto the Utah Valley State College Campus every day. That is because since 1996 a law has been in effect stating that concealed weapons are allowed anywhere in the state of Utah except secure areas such as airports. . . . "I don't see the point of banning weapons on campus," Richard McDonald said, a construction management major at UVSC. "If someone is going to commit a crime, I don't think they are going to change their mind because of the school or state rules." In a study conducted by the U of U alumni association, over 63 percent of students thought guns should be allowed on campus, either because the right to bare arms is protected under the constitution, or because the presence of guns would act as a deterrent to criminal behavior.

Donohue withdraws from Thursday's University of Chicago debate on Guns

Disappointingly, John Donohue has at the last minute withdrawn from our scheduled debate on Thursday (see note for 11/29 below). I will still give a talk, though I will instead discuss the changing judicial confirmation process. Here was the advertising of the debate in the Chicago Daily Law Bulletin:


Chicago Daily Law Bulletin

November 26, 2004, Friday

SECTION: Pg. 3

LENGTH: 921 words

HEADLINE: A Web of plans at Illinois schools

BYLINE: JERRY CRIMMINS

. . .

University of Chicago Law School

- At 12:15 p.m. Thursday, Dec. 2, at the law school, the Federalist Society will present a debate entitled, "Do More Guns Result in Less Crime?" John Lott, resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research and author of " More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws," will debate Yale Law School Professor John Donohue, author of "Shooting Down the ' More Guns, Less Crime' Hypothesis."

UPDATE: When I gave my talk at Chicago, I asked the students if they knew what had happened, but no one apparently understood why Donohue really backed out of the debate just a couple of days before the event. The debate had been set up months in advance. I had received the same emails that Donohue and Bernard Harcourt, the moderator, received confirming the event more than a month in advance. The emails were cc'd to my address, Donohue's, and Harcourt's at the same time. If there had been some misunderstanding, Donohue should have notified everyone much earlier than two days before the event.

UPDATE 2: Here are some of my very early email correspondance with Joe Cascio, with the University of Chicago Federalist Society, from the just the first half of September. The claim has been made that the event wasn't confirmed until November 29th, but I have it first confirmed in September and then several emails after that checking on the event (including just asking if people had any questions, confirming flights, and setting up the ground rules for the debate).

From: jcascio@uchicago.edu
Date: September 13, 2004 9:29:10 PM EDT
To: John Lott
Subject: Re: Speaking to the Federalist Society w/John Donohue


Dear Dr. Lott,

Great. The topic is "Do more guns (i.e. less restrictive gun laws) mean less crime?" As far as format, anything mutually agreeable to you and Professor Donohue would be fine, but we had in mind a debate with fifteen minutes for you to speak, then fifteen minutes for Professor Donohue, then ten minutes for you, then ten minutes for him, followed by ten minutes of student questions. Please let me know if that's acceptable to you. In any case, thank you very much for accepting our invitation and I'm really looking forward to this event. Please let me know if you will need a hotel room the night of the first.

Joe

Quoting John Lott :



That should be fine. What exactly is the topic? What are the ground
rules?

On Sep 9, 2004, at 6:40 PM, jcascio@uchicago.edu wrote:


Dear Dr. Lott,

I'm sorry I didn't respond sooner to your message. I was out of town for a bit, then I checked with Donohue and Harcourt to see what day that you had said you would be available would work for them. How about December 2? We could have the debate at lunch and if you need to stay the night before we could put you up at the Omni downtown. In any case, please let me know if this can work out and thanks for your patience.

Sincerely,

Joe Cascio



Debate with John Donohue is again canceled, this time with only six days to go.

Further discussion of Ian Ayres & John Donohue

"Violent hunters are not the rule"

Steve Chapman has a nice op-ed on the risks involved in hunting:

The most conspicuous fact about hunting in America is how safe it is. There are more than 15 million licensed hunters in this country, all armed with weapons that can easily kill a duck, a rabbit, a deer or a human being. All it takes is a split-second misjudgment or lapse of concentration to produce a lasting tragedy. But such tragedies are very much the exception.

Supreme Court lets stand lower court ruling striking down campaign spending limits

Justices, without comment, let stand a lower ruling striking down the city of Albuquerque's spending limits as a violation of free speech rights. The court declined to consider whether a 28-year-old landmark decision barring caps should be reassessed due to skyrocketing campaign costs that critics say promotes corruption.

Vote Fraud in Washington State?

In Seattle's King County alone the vote counting so far has featured such anomalies as 10,000 ballots being mysteriously discovered nearly two weeks after Election Day, election officials "enhancing" hundreds of unreadable optical-scan ballots, and a judge allowing political partisans to selectively track down voters who cast questionable provisional ballots to see if they could turn them into valid votes. . . . More than 700 previously uncounted ballots were added to [King] county's total after election officials "enhanced" them to better divine voter intent. When optical scan machines didn't accept ballots, workers would fill in ovals on ballots or create duplicate ballots if they felt the voter had meant to register a choice. Hanging chads, meet empty ovals. Through this process, Ms. Gregoire gained 245 votes in King County, dwarfing the shifts to either candidate in any other county. Such creative counting brought Mr. Rossi's lead down to 42 votes, a critical threshold to justify further recounts and litigation.

Debate on guns at University of Chicago Law School on Friday

The Federalist Society of the University of Chicago Law School presents a debate between John Lott and John Donohue entitled: "Do More Guns Result in Less Crime?" Dr. Lott is a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute for Public Policy Research where he researches crime, antitrust, education, gun control, campaign finance, and voting and legislative behavior. He is the author of More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws. Professor Donohue is a professor of law at Yale Law School and the author of many articles, including "Shooting Down the 'More Guns, Less Crime' Hypothesis," 55 Stanford Law Review 1193 (with Ian Ayres) The debate will be moderated by Prof. Bernard Harcourt and will be held at the Law School on Thursday, December 2nd at 12:15pm.

UPDATE:Unfortunately, John Donohue has withdrawn from the University of Chicago debate on Guns at the last moment. No one apparently understands why Donohue really backed out of the debate just a couple of days before the event. The debate had been set up months in advance.