The Reality-Based Community

Some additional details on the Cheney shooting incident.

John Lott appears to have written an anonymous review of the Phil Cook/Jens Ludwig book on the cost of gun violence, in which he pretends to be a gun control supporter disappointed by the quality of the research.
I had heard a rumor that if you looked up “sneak” in the Pictionary you’d find a picture [...]

Chris Mooney’s story in the on-line version of Mother Jones [*] combines a clear account of the various Lott brouhahas with some original reporting of the constantly changing stories Lott told Mooney about the now-famous Stanford Law Review article. (Interview transcripts here)
Mooney draws the natural comparison with Bellesiles, and notes that, while Bellesisles got [...]

Having been critical of Glenn Reynolds recently, I note with pleasure that he’s taking a fairly hard line on John Lott, calling for what is clearly called for: a serious investigation by someone — better, a panel — competent to investigate.
The American Enterprise Institute could, and should, convene such a panel, since they’ve been [...]

Michael Maltz of the University of Illinois is a statistician with an impressive record as a student of crime and crime control. In an email to me, reprinted in full below with his permission, he offers some reflections on the John Lott affair. Right now, Lott seems to have few defenders left, [...]

Eugene Volokh [*] seems to think that John Lott’s responses to his critics are worth reading. I can’t imagine why, except for those interested in abnormal psychology. He has been detected in so many different lies [*], some of them utterly pointless [*], that his words have approximately the net information content [...]

From Imprints, via a link from Crooked Timber: the one, the only, Michael Walzer. (To those of you who never took Walzer’s seminar on Hobbes, all I can say is that you bear your almost intolerable deprivation with more cheerfulness than I could muster, were I in your shoes.)
Here are my favorite bits [...]

As promised earlier, I asked John Donohue for his thoughts on the question of what mechanism might explain his finding that looser restrictions on carrying concealed weapons (”shall-issue” laws) tended to increase crime. (Kieran Healy handily captures the Month’s-Worst-Pun award by suggesting as the answer to this question “the trigger mechanism.”)
It turns out that Donohue [...]

The following (quoted with permission) is from an email to me from John Donohue. Donohue and his co-author had suggested — it turns out incorrectly — that Lott’s withdrawal of his name from the Stanford Law Review paper might represent a confession of error. Since that assertion has traveled around the blogosphere, Donohue [...]

There’s not much hope that Bill Bennett will find the intense delight he has given to his many loyal enemies adequate recompense for the $8 million he appears to have blown on his gambling addiction. But I suppose we ought to take delight where we can find it. “It shouldn’t,” as my grandmother [...]