{"id":1949,"date":"2009-04-17T17:30:35","date_gmt":"2009-04-17T21:30:35","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/?p=1949"},"modified":"2011-04-12T08:09:24","modified_gmt":"2011-04-12T12:09:24","slug":"john-lott-abcs-if-i-only-had-a-gun-experiment-shameful","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/2009\/04\/17\/john-lott-abcs-if-i-only-had-a-gun-experiment-shameful\/","title":{"rendered":"John Lott: ABC’s “If I Only Had a Gun” Experiment Shameful"},"content":{"rendered":"

I watched ABC’s 20\/20 special report “If I Only Had a Gun” last Friday. I came away from it with a couple of distinct impressions and I’ve been meaning to write a post about them… I’m going to defer to John Lott though, he seems to have come away the same impressions<\/a> I did.<\/p>\n

The first thing that struck me was their experiment to “prove” that armed citizens can’t stop school shooters. Lott writes:<\/p>\n

The experiment was set up to make the student fail. It did not resemble a real-world shooting. The same scenario is shown three times, but in each case the student with the gun is seated in the same seat \u2013- the center seat in the front row. The attacker is not only a top-notch shooter \u2013- a firearms expert who teaches firearms tactics and strategy to police -\u2013 but also obviously knows precisely where the student with the gun is sitting.<\/p>\n

Each time the experiment is run, the attacker first fires two shots at the teacher in the front of the class and then turns his gun directly on the very student with the gun. The attacker wastes no time trying to gun down any of the unarmed students. Thus, very unrealistically, between the very first shot setting the armed student on notice and the shots at the armed student, there is at most 2 seconds. The armed student is allowed virtually no time to react and, unsurprisingly, fails under the same circumstances that would have led even experienced police officers to fare poorly.<\/p>\n

But in the real world, a typical shooter is not a top-notch firearms expert and has no clue about whether or not anyone might be armed and, if so, where they are seated. If you have 50 people \u2013- a pretty typical college classroom \u2013- and he is unknown to the attacker, the armed student is given a tremendous advantage. Actually, if the experiment run by \u201c20\/20\u2033 seriously demonstrated anything, it highlighted the problem of\u00a0 relying on uniformed police or security guards for safety: the killer instantly knows whom to shoot first.<\/p>\n

Yet, in the ABC experiment, the purposefully disadvantaged students are not just identified and facing (within less than 2 seconds) an attacker whose gun is already drawn. They are also forced to wear unfamiliar gloves, a helmet, and a holster. This only adds to the difficulties the students face in handling their guns.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Lott is entirely correct as former police officer I’ve had good deal of firearms training and I doubt, given the variables in the 20\/20 experiment, I would have fared much better than the students.<\/p>\n

The second point is the so called “gun show loop-hole”…\u00a0 The gun show loop-hole is a bit a of fallacy pushed by gun control advocates, In short,\u00a0 if you buy a firearm from a licensed dealer you have to complete the required paperwork and under go a background check regardless where you purchase it. The so called loop-hole arises from private sales… That is sales from one private citizen to another, the laws vary by jurisdiction, in some states no paperwork or background checks are required. For what it’s worth here in Connecticut background checks are required for private sales.<\/p>\n

Regardless as Lott notes “… very few criminals get their guns from gun shows: a U.S. Justice Department survey of 18,000 state prison inmates showed that less than one percent (0.7%) of prisoners had obtained their gun from a gun show. Even adding flea markets and gun shows together raises the number to just 1.7 percent.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I watched ABC’s 20\/20 special report “If I Only Had a Gun” last Friday. I came away from it with a couple of distinct impressions and I’ve been meaning to write a post about them… I’m going to defer to John Lott though, he seems to have come away the same impressions I did. The […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","advanced_seo_description":"","jetpack_seo_html_title":"","jetpack_seo_noindex":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[19],"tags":[607,118,608,609,1368],"class_list":["post-1949","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-media","tag-607","tag-abc-news","tag-if-i-only-had-a-gun","tag-school-shootings","tag-second-amendment","entry"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pfpI7-vr","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":4545,"url":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/2012\/07\/27\/bill-oreilly-pinhead\/","url_meta":{"origin":1949,"position":0},"title":"Bill O’Reilly: Pinhead","author":"Jeff","date":"July 27, 2012","format":false,"excerpt":"Yeah, I said it, and I mean it... Bill O'Reilly is a pinhead. I'm a little late getting to this, but I can't let this ill-informed rant by Mr. O'Reilly pass without comment. Look I'm not a Bill O'Reilly fan, I think he's the worst kind of self-important, self-righteous, populist\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":4905,"url":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/2013\/04\/07\/gun-dealers-license-revocation-unrelated-to-newtown-shootings\/","url_meta":{"origin":1949,"position":1},"title":"Gun Dealer’s License Revocation Unrelated to Newtown Shootings","author":"Jeff","date":"April 7, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"I'm sure you've seen news reports over the last few days saying the license of the gun shop were Sandy Hook gunman Adam Lanza's mother Nancy bought two of the guns found at Sandy Hook Elementary School after the massacre. While it's true that store's Federal Firearms License (FFL) has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Media"","block_context":{"text":"Media","link":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/category\/media\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":8347,"url":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/2019\/06\/14\/ask-amy-gets-it-wrong-on-guns\/","url_meta":{"origin":1949,"position":2},"title":"Ask Amy Gets It Wrong On Guns","author":"Jeff","date":"June 14, 2019","format":false,"excerpt":"I haven\u2019t had much interest in writing lately but every now and then the urge hits me \u2013 this is one of those times. I recently came a across an advice column written by Amy Dickinson that I simply can\u2019t not comment on. What caught my eye was this letter\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Culture","link":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/category\/culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":3168,"url":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/2010\/01\/11\/harry-reid-racist-idiot\/","url_meta":{"origin":1949,"position":3},"title":"Harry Reid: Racist Idiot","author":"Jeff","date":"January 11, 2010","format":false,"excerpt":"Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is under fire for remarks he made to reporters about then-presidential candidate Barack Obama in 2008: Republicans called on Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to resign his leadership post over remarks he made in 2008 about then-presidential candidate Barack Obama, adding to the Nevada Democrat's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Politics"","block_context":{"text":"Politics","link":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/category\/politics\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5055,"url":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/2013\/06\/24\/ms-magazine-pulls-plug-on-my-month-with-a-gun-blog\/","url_meta":{"origin":1949,"position":4},"title":"Ms. Magazine Pulls Plug on \u2018My Month with A Gun\u2019 Blog","author":"Jeff","date":"June 24, 2013","format":false,"excerpt":"Ms. Magazine editor Michele Kort has apparently decided to pull the plug on Heidi Yewman's three part \u2018My Month with A Gun\u2019 blog because \"gun blogs\" had discovered series and were highly critical of Ms. Yewman's actions: \u201cSo, Heidi,\u201d began the email to Heidi Yewman from Michele Kort, her editor\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Guns"","block_context":{"text":"Guns","link":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/category\/guns\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":5672,"url":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/2014\/08\/27\/9-year-old-girl-accidentally-kills-shooting-range-instructor\/","url_meta":{"origin":1949,"position":5},"title":"9-Year-Old Girl Accidentally Kills Shooting Range Instructor","author":"Jeff","date":"August 27, 2014","format":false,"excerpt":"From Time: A nine-year-old girl accidentally shot and killed a shooting range instructor in Arizona, police say. Charles Vacca, 39, was instructing the girl on how to use an automatic Uzi on Monday when the girl, who was accompanied by her parents, pulled the trigger and then lost control of\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Culture"","block_context":{"text":"Culture","link":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/category\/culture\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1949","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1949"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1949\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1949"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1949"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.jasetaro.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1949"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}