TINLEY PARK, IL – DECEMBER 17: A customer shopped for a pistol at Freddie Bear Sports sporting goods store on December 17, 2012 in Tinley Park, Illinois. (Photo by Scott Olson/Getty Images)
OAN Newsroom
UPDATED 9:27 AM PT – Monday, April 19, 2021
Economist John Lott questioned the validity and effectiveness of gun control legislation.
In an interview released Saturday, Lott challenged many of the arguments made by Democrats and Joe Biden regarding proposals to restrict gun rights. One of his main focuses was looking at whom gun control laws harm, especially steep prices of background checks for private gun transfers.
“The people who benefit the most from guns, are the people who are most likely victims of violent crime,” Lott said. “That overwhelmingly tends to be poor Blacks who live in high crime urban areas. $125, even if it doesn’t make a difference for you or I being able to do it, it may make a difference between whether a poor Black is able to legally obtain a gun to protect themselves and their families.”
Lott wasn’t done taking on the unbalanced effect gun control laws tend to have on people of color. He brought up how the data of concealed carry permit holders in Los Angeles, a county where it’s extremely difficult to obtain a permit, shows bias.
“Only six and a half percent of permit holders are Black, nationwide it’s almost 14 percent. Only 6 percent of the permit holders in Los Angeles County are Hispanic,” Lott stated. “54 percent of the population in Los Angeles County is Hispanic.”
Mass shootings was another topic which Lott discussed, defying proposed gun control laws would prevent the vast majority of them.
In a recent speech announcing his plan to pursue gun control, Joe Biden called out America’s gun crime rates.
WILMINGTON, DELAWARE – AUGUST 20: Joe Biden delivered a speech on August 20, 2020 in Wilmington, Delaware. (Photo by Win McNamee/Getty Images)
“Gun violence in this country is an epidemic, let me say it again,” Biden stated. “Gun violence in this country is an epidemic and it’s an international embarrassment.”
However, Lott had the facts on American shooting rates.
“The United States makes up about 4.6 percent of the world population. We make up about 1 percent of the mass public shooters in the world,” Lott explained. “So we’re way way below the world average.”
In the end, Lott shot down the most extreme gun control measures due to their ineffectiveness. In particular, he pointed to gun bans in island nations, implying they would be the easiest place to enforce the laws where there are no bordering nations to sneak in firearms.
“You’d think would be kind of the ideal experiment from their point of view. That have seen significant huge increases in murder rates, immediately after the bans go into place,” Lott said.