Giving the Devil his Due by Michael Shermer

Author:Michael Shermer [Shermer, Michael]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Published: 2020-04-08T22:00:00+00:00

Figure 17.1 Michael Shermer speaking at Penn State University, Altoona.

Photo credit: Marissa Carney, media and public relations coordinator at Penn State Altoona; reproduced courtesy of Penn State, Altoona.

Figure 17.2 Michael Shermer speaking at Penn State University, Altoona.

Photo credit: Marissa Carney, media and public relations coordinator at Penn State Altoona; reproduced courtesy of Penn State, Altoona.

After the debate, someone in the audience told me that throughout my presentation Lott was rolling his eyes and making faces in response to my points. This person found Lott’s behavior to be rude, but I think Lott simply can’t help himself. I suspect he might be on the spectrum with something like Asperger’s syndrome, where he just blurts out what is on his mind and, when asked questions, delivers long and rambling answers that are so convoluted that by the time he’s done talking it’s hard to remember what the original question was. This was the case even in private time with Lott, for example when we were in the limo being driven to the debate venues from our hotel. In one case, this was a long drive of about ninety minutes each way, so we spent a lot of time in a very closed space together, time he had no problem filling with long stories and mini-lectures, most of which I rather enjoyed. He’s a likeable enough fellow, but I don’t trust his numbers when it comes to gun control. In my opinion he’s more of a committed advocate than a nonpartisan scholar. He would, of course, disagree with that assessment.

Either way, Lott is remarkably adroit with numbers, demographics, studies, and statistics related to guns, and he can rattle them off from memory in a debate or on a television show. I did my homework on Lott’s research and his critics, and prepared slides summarizing studies that are (1) critical of Lott’s methods and results, and (2) show the exact opposite of what he concluded in his title-by-thesis book: More Guns, Less Crime. As often as not, more guns is associated with more crime, particularly homicide.

As a quick-and-dirty guide to the gun-control debate, here are a few of the key take-home points from my PowerPoint presentation, starting with NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre’s famous proclamation:

The only thing that stops a bad guy with a gun is a good guy with a gun.

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