John Lott to Unveil New Book at NRA Annual Meeting

A decade ago, John Lott’s best-selling More Guns, Less Crime shattered conventional wisdom about gun control, and changed the academic debate among criminologists and economists from how much gun ownership caused crime to increase, to how much it caused crime to decrease.

Now, the Senior Research Scientist at the University of Maryland, College Park, and former University of Chicago visiting professor and chief economist with the U.S. Sentencing Commission is releasing the third edition of his thought-provoking book. And, NRA members attending the annual meeting in Charlotte, N.C., will have the opportunity to meet Professor Lott and have him autograph a copy of the new book before it is available to general public. Book signings will take place in the Charlotte Convention Center on Friday and Saturday afternoons from 1:15 to 2:00 and 3:00-4:00 outside the “Method of Concealed Carry” seminar, room 217 A/B, and on Sunday between 10:00 and noon in the general book signing area between the ballroom and the terrace.

With over 180 pages of new material, the third edition of More Guns, Less Crime (published by the University of Chicago Press) covers issues that are most important to Second Amendment supporters today, as well as those that were on the front-burner during the battle to protect the right to keep and bear arms in the 1990s.

Lott presents research on the effects of the federal and state “assault weapons” bans, and on “Castle Doctrine” laws now in place in more than half the states. And just as the first edition of his book helped convince many reluctant state politicians to adopt NRA-supported right-to-carry laws, his new book should play a similar role in supporting current efforts to expand right to carry laws, underway in a number of states. Lott presents the number of permit holders in each carry-permit state, and articulates the relatively low incidence of crime among permit-holders and the contribution that people who carry firearms lawfully make to reducing crime.

With the threat of international gun control agreements still very much alive, Lott also documents how every place in the world that has adopted a ban on guns has experienced an increase in murder rates, often suddenly and dramatically.

Like its first and second editions, the third edition of More Guns, Less Crime is a “must-read” for anyone who wants to be armed with the scientifically-proven evidence that reducing gun controls and increasing the ability of Americans to exercise their right to arms has helped make America a more free and less dangerous place in which to live.

If you are unable to attend the NRA Annual Meetings in Charlotte but would still like to purchase the book, please visit http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0226493660/ref=nosim/?tag=johnrlotttrip-20.