My review of Pamela Haag's book on American Gun Culture

For those interested in my very critical review of Pamela Haag's book, I have posted it at Amazon.com here.

New book out by my friend Frank Buckley that is well worth your time to read

I put up a review at Amazon.com on Frank Buckley's new book "The Way Back: Restoring the Promise of America."  My review is available here.  Highly recommended.

Found a place with a lot of reviews of my books

Some reviews of my books at Good Reads.

More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws

Freedomnomics

The Bias Against Guns: Why Almost Everything You've Heard About Gun Control is Wrong

Debacle: Obama's War on Jobs and Growth and What We Can Do Now to Regain Our Future

Review of third edition of More Guns, Less Crime in the American Hunter

Clicking on the article will make it larger so that it can be read.

Book review of new Third Edition of More Guns, Less Crime in America's First Freedom

Clicking on images will produce a larger picture and make it easier to read text.

Book Review by my son Roger on the over criminalization of society

A copy of Roger's review of the book "ONE NATION UNDER ARREST: HOW CRAZY LAWS, ROGUE PROSECUTORS, AND ACTIVIST JUDGES THREATEN YOUR LIBERTY," Edited by Paul Rosenzweig and Brian W. Walsh (The Heritage Foundation, $14.95, 268 pages), is available here.

Review of More Guns, Less Crime

Tim Lee at the Center for Individual Freedom has a review of More Guns, Less Crime here:

Over a decade has passed since More Guns, Less Crime was released in 1998, immediately remaking the gun rights debate landscape. Lott, who brought an economist’s empiricism to a debate saturated in passion but short on probative data, proposed “a critical review of the existing evidence on gun control and crime.” Accordingly, he asked: “Does allowing people to own or carry guns deter violent crime, or does it simply cause more citizens to harm each other?”

Lott’s objective conclusion was controversial in 1998, less so today. . . .

Mention of the Third Edition of More Guns, Less Crime in America's First Freedom

There is 184 pages of new material, though for Chapter 10 alone and the accompanying support material there is 140 pages. But that is minor, and I am quite happy that they ran the note.

Thanks very much to Marianne Mele for sending me a copy of this review.

An old review of The Bias Against Guns that I just found

DALE STEINREICH at Drury University has this review here.

Reviews at Facebook of Freedomnomics

Many are extremely nice, a few aren't, but I still appreciate people reading the book. The reviews are here.

Walter Williams discusses Freedomnomics

Walter's entire piece can be seen here:

By taking a couple of courses in economic theory, we could immunize ourselves from nonsense spouted by politicians and pundits, but in the meantime check out Professor John R. Lott's "Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works."

His first chapter is "Are You Being Ripped Off?" It addresses myths about predation where it's sometimes alleged that corporations will charge below-cost prices to bankrupt their rivals and then charge unconscionable prices. There's little or no evidence that corporations would choose predation as strategy; there are too many pitfalls. A major one is that in order to recoup losses from charging low prices to bankrupt rivals, the predator would later have to charge higher-than-normal prices. That would attract new rivals who might have purchased the bankrupt assets of the predator's prey and be able to undercut the predator's prices. . . .

Thanks, Walter.

An endorsement of More Guns, Less Crime

Tom Delay writes:

A great book is John Lott’s More Guns Less Crime. He digs into the real statistics and the psychological profiles of criminals who prey on those who are the least likely to defend themselves. It’s disgusting, but what’s even worse is a government that forces you to rely on their public services – meaning the cops who take 30 minutes to show up, if at all – as your first line of defense. . . .

More comments on Freedomnomics

I'm just getting started on this book. So far, it is--thankfully!--a much more interesting read than Dr. Lott's More Guns, Less Crime, which is a marvelous repository of information and should be on the shelf of everyone interested in the second amendment, self-defense, crime, and liberty, but is nevertheless, for the most part, a drearily boring exposition of reams of statistical data that only the most determined reader will slog through to confirm a thesis which is intuitively obvious to most of us: a ubiquitously armed citizenry suffers less crime.

Well, I didn't mean to slam More Guns, Less Crime. Like I said, it should be on shelves everywhere. I'm just sayin' Freedomnomics looks to be a considerably more entertaining read, though no less informative.

The American Hunter Reviews Freedomnomics

This is from the December 2007 issue:

When John R. Lott, author of More Guns, Less Crime, sent me a copy of Freedomnomics, I was ready for my preconceptions to be busted; after all, this is the guy who, after years of research, proved that gun control doesn't lower crime rates -- actuall all it does is disarm law-abiding citizens. Freedomnomics starts with a hat tip to Adam Smith's The Wealth of Nations, then clearly shows what the free market has done for America and the free world. The book includes chapter titled "Crime and Punishment" that covers our Second Amendment freedoms. Lott delves into crime statistics to find out if things like the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban worked. When the ban expired in 2004 Sarah Brady predicted that it would effectively "arm our kids with Uzis and AK-47s." Instead, Lott's research shows the nationwide murder rate fell by 3 percent in 2004. This book busts anti-free market myths and will give you control and many other issues pertinent to America today.

Lemuel Calhoon's Review of Freedomnomics

A strong positive review by Lemuel Calhoon is greatly appreciated:

In five well written chapters Dr. Lott not only refutes the assertions of Freakonomics he sings a paean of praise to the free market and demonstrates why it is uniquely suited to not only provide any nation which embraces it with the greatest abundance, but how it also polices itself and keeps fraud and predation to a minimum. . . . .

Another Review of Freedomnomics

That is why I salute John Lott's Freedomnomics: Why the Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don't (Regnery, 2007), a voice of reason in a swamp of interventionist megalomania that threatens to push the land of the free down the road of the late Roman Empire.

Freedomnomics, translating economics into regular English, shows that bureaucratic and judicial attempts to correct the market restore feudalism and hurt the poor. Corporate scandals that lower a firm's reputation create disincentives to cheat and thus become part of a self-correcting market mechanism. Lott also discerns the true link between legalized abortion and crime: In opposition to the best-selling book Freakonomics, he shows that easy access to abortion leads to change in attitudes to premarital sex, more out-of-wedlock children, family breakdown, and thus to more crime. . . . .

Todd Zywicki posts nice review of Freedomnomics on Volokh.com

Todd Zywicki writes a very nice review of my book at volokh.com.

Glenn Reynolds was nice enough to post a link to Todd's review on Instapundit.

Another Review of Freedomnomics

If you read "Freakonomics," Then you had better read "Freedomnomics: Why The Free Market Works and Other Half-Baked Theories Don't" by John R. Lott, Jr. You owe it to yourself and to anyone you recommended "Freakonomics" to.

Art DeVany's nice mention of Freedomnomics

I think John Lott's Freedomnomics may one day be added to the classic literature of libertarianism (with a little "l").

Art is a very well known economist and this is very nice of him.

Another Review of Freedomnomics

Freedomnomics was excellent, it reinforced my belief in the free market, as both a system that betters the lives of people all over the world, as well as in the United States. Further, it helped convince me beyond most doubt that taxes and government are the antithesis of progress, efficiency, and to a degree, even altruism and mandated by government to look out for government interests, and by its nature will continue to expand. . . .