Lott To G&P: Johns Hopkins’ Gun Violence Study Flawed, Twisted

The economist, who is the leading expert on gun violence statistics, refuted a Johns Hopkins study that claims the repeal of Missouri’s “universal background checks” law is the cause of an increase in murder rates, in an exclusive Guns & Patriots interview.

“There is a lot of arbitrary cherry-picking of the data,” said John R. Lott Jr., president of Crime Prevention Research Center, a research and education organization that studies the relationship between laws regulating the ownership or use of guns, crime, and public safety.  “Other research that looked at all the states, not just one, comes to a different conclusion.”

Baltimore-based Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health conducted a study that claims Missouri’s murder rate increased by 16 percent after the state legislature in 2007 repealed its universal background checks law, which required all handgun purchasers to undergo a background check at the auspices of local law enforcement.

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