12/06/2012

My newest Fox News piece: Bob Costas can't shoot straight when it comes to guns

My newest piece starts this way:
Bob Costas doubled down on gun control Wednesday night on "The O’Reilly Factor" and  Tuesday on MSNBC. Despite all the commotion generated by his rant on guns during halftime on NBC’s "Sunday Night Football,” he just couldn’t leave well enough alone. He called for restrictions on concealed handgun permit holders and reduced gun ownership in cities. Some Democratic lawmakers followed Costas’ lead and called for more gun control this week.  
Unfortunately, Costas’ statements were filled with errors on topics ranging from "body armor" to “automatic weapons” to the gun laws in Colorado to the views of police to the behavior of permit holders.  
During appearances on both shows Costas worried about the “Wild West, Dirty Harry mentality” of America’s 8 million concealed handgun permit holders.  
Regarding the Aurora, Colorado shooting he attacked: “people who actually believe that if a number of people were armed at the theater in Aurora, they would have been able to take down this nut job in body armor and military style artillery.” But Costas never asked why the killer picked the Cinemark’s Century 16 Theater in Aurora, Colorado on July 20th to commit mass murder. . . .
There are lots of other mistakes that Costas made in his presentation, but I only had about 800 words.  I would have also gone through the claimed benefits from background checks, let alone Costas' claim that even more stringent rules are needed.  The literature on the lack of benefits from mandatory training would have been useful also. His belief that he had never known of a professional athlete who had been helped by the presence of a gun misses the cases of Corey Fuller who defended himself against two armed robbers or T.J. Slaughter who claims that he was being threatened by other motorists.

UPDATE: USA Today has this claim that three-quarters of NFL players own guns.  See also this quote by former NFL running back Thomas Jones:
"Most guys when they first come into the league is when they first start to realize they need protection," Jones says. "Because money brings a lot of positive things. But most of the time, it brings more negative things. People don't like you for what you have, for who you are. They don't like you for what you represent. And people will go to any length to take what you have or harm you in some way just because they don't have what you have. If you don't have a firearm to protect you from situations and God forbid something happens to you, you wish you would have a firearm." . . .

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2 Comments:

Blogger Boxi-leaks said...

I notice you always say murder rates rise, when guns are banned.

Your statistics on the UK are bizarre.....I have no idea where you got them from.

Serious crime, murders, robberies are all at record lows in the UK.

What's more, hand guns have never really legal in the UK anyway (for a long time). Even pre 1997, you could only own one under very strict licensing laws (as in, if you were a member of a gun club, and could store it in a locked facility).

Even discounting the fact that I suspect most of your statistical claims are crank, you always make the same point

"crime rises once guns are banned"

You never compare actual murder rates between banned/legal countries, or violent crime.

Possibly because the USA had 5x as many murder/violent crimes, per million people, this year than the UK

You know, the UK has one of the lowest crime rates/murder rates in the world. It's ludicrous to even attempt to compare it to the USA (possibly the most crime ridden country in the western world).




12/07/2012 10:33 AM  
Blogger John Lott said...

Dear Boxi-leaks:
I provide links to where the statistics can be found. All you have to do is follow the links. My book More Guns, Less Crime is also available to you with much more detailed discussions. Here is some information for you: http://johnrlott.blogspot.com/2011/01/some-examples-of-impact-of-gun-bans-on.html
I have written two books comparing "actual murder rates between banned/legal countries, or violent crime." MGLC you can get for $5.13 if you don't have a library nearby. http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B003S9W5HQ/ref=nosim/?tag=johnrlotttrip-20

12/07/2012 4:48 PM  

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