8/03/2012

How the University of Chicago Press deals with the gun debate

UPDATE: I have been told that I misinterpreted the intentions of the qualifier at the beginning of the tweet on my op-ed piece.  This is part of an email that I received (there is no reason to reveal who sent this to me): "Here's why I think she did it and what I think she meant: As you know, when anyone posts anything on a hot-button political issue, people online tend to respond in knee-jerk fashion--basically, in this case, we'd see a lot of 'Guns kill people--John Lott's full of it.' What she was trying to say was, don't respond that way--click the link and read the op-ed."

Original post: I asked the University of Chicago Press to tweet a link to my piece in the WSJ given that piece was getting attention for my book that was published by the UChicago Press.  You will note that a couple weeks earlier the press had publicized an op-ed that pushed for gun control from Roger Ebert, who to my knowledge has not published a book on that topic through the UChicago Press.  More interesting was how for my post the press thought that it was necessary to add a disclaimer for the post, essentially asking readers not to get angry for them tweeting the link.


Regarding his piece in the NY Times that was published less than two days after the attack, Mr. Ebert writes:
Our gun laws are also insane, but many refuse to make the connection. The United States is one of few developed nations that accepts the notion of firearms in public hands. In theory, the citizenry needs to defend itself. Not a single person at the Aurora, Colo., theater shot back, but the theory will still be defended. . . .
He seems oblivious to the fact that guns were banned in the movie theater and that it was the good law-abiding citizens who obeyed the ban, not the criminal.  My guess is that Ebert wrote this piece on Friday, the day of the attack.  Ebert continues:  
This would be an excellent time for our political parties to join together in calling for restrictions on the sale and possession of deadly weapons. That is unlikely, because the issue has become so closely linked to paranoid fantasies about a federal takeover of personal liberties that many politicians feel they cannot afford to advocate gun control. . . .
There are no facts in Ebert's piece, though he is good at whipping up emotions.  While it is indeed true that some care about the loss of freedom, I would guess that most of the people in the middle of this debate care about safety, and given the number of Americans with guns, I think that I can show that would be the vast majority of gun owners.

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1 Comments:

Anonymous Anonymous said...

You'll notice that most of these people never utter a single word about guns, the only exception being immediately after after some highly publicized shooting. I strongly suspect the reason is that they realize they absolutely no rational arguments or empirical evidence on their side, only pure emotion. As a result they sit back and wait their chance to wave the bloody shirt, hoping that there will be enough momentum in public to carry the day when they would have no hope otherwise.

8/03/2012 8:37 PM  

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