Dr. John Lott
John Richard Lott, Jr., an American economist, political critic, and a notable gun rights advocate was born on May 8, 1958. Lott received his Bachelor’s degree in economics in 1980, at UCLA. He received his Master’s degree in 1982 and Ph.D. in 1984, also from UCLA.
John has held important positions in economics and law at several prestigious institutions including, the University of Maryland, College Park, the Yale Law School, the University of Stanford, UCLA, the Wharton Business School, Texas A&M University, and Rice University. In 1988, he served as the chief economist at the United States Sentencing Commission, for a year. In 1994, he accepted the post of visiting professor at the University of Chicago, and a year later, he served as a Fellow at the University of Chicago for the next four years.
In 2001, he was appointed as a resident scholar at the American Enterprise Institute, a post he held for the next six years. Upon receiving a job offer at the Binghamton University, he decided to quit the American Enterprise Institute. In 2007, Lott was appointed as a senior research scientist at the University of Maryland Foundation.
John Lott’s fame is mainly associated with his support for gun rights. He strongly opposes the restrictions placed on adult gun usage and ownership. Lott has authored several books and articles on this issue, including famous and controversial publications such as More Guns, Less Crime, and The Bias against Guns. In his publications, Lott argues against the demerits of carrying a weapon, in his opinion, the use of a weapon for defence can reduce the chances of death. He states that the opposition for gun ownership arises from the fact that defensive gun use often goes unnoticed, and thus underreported, whereas, shootings that lead to causalities are always highlighted in the News. Lott proposes that if adults are allowed carry concealed and registered weapons, the crime rate in America can be significantly reduced. Lott’s work in advocating gun rights has attracted much support and even more controversy. Public policies proposed by Lott are often looked over as controversial, however, his work has been praised by notable academics including, economist Bruce Benson of Florida State, Professor John O. McGinnis of Cardozo School of Law, and Professor William F. Shughart of University of Mississippi. Newsweek has given him the title of “The Gun Crowd’s Guru.”
John Lott has made notable literary contributions to academics, he has published 8 books which have received overwhelming praise and approval, including More Guns, Less Crime, Dumbing Down the Courts: How Politics Keeps the Smartest Judges Off the Bench, The Bias Against Guns, and Freedomnomics. Lott has contributed more than a 100 articles to numerous prestigious financial and daily journals, including the Wall Street Journal, The New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, USA Today, and the Chicago Tribune. From 2008 till 2009, he served as a weekly columnist at Fox News. Lott has also been an active advocator of government deregulations, he has published articles on this issue in numerous famous magazines. In 2012, Lott emerged at the 19th number of all-time downloads, and ranked at 2662 number in scholarly citations of his work, on the Social Science Research Network.
Episode Appearances
