Elections Rights/Constitution National/International Opinion

New Mexico Gun Control Group Breaks Background Check Law and blames Lott, Have Murder Rates Really Fallen Back to Pre-Pandemic levels, a Survey on Vote Fraud with Mail-in Ballots, and more

Posted By Editor2

December 30, 2023

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Opinion

By John Lott, Crime Prevention Research Center

12-30-23

Happy New Year!

It has been an interesting end of the year.

— With just a week to go before Illinois’ assault weapon ban goes into effect, just a very tiny percent of gun owners have registered their weapons.

— With Democrats facing attacks over the increase in violent crime that started in 2020 with the defunding of police and the massive release of inmates from jails and prisons, the media is trying to convince people that the violent crime rate is lower than it was in 2019.

– The mass murder at the university in Prague demonstrates yet again how European countries have much higher per capita mass public shooting rates than the United States. But no one in the media pointed that out.

— A New Mexico gun control group breaks the state’s Universal Background Check law that they fought to pass when they engaged in a door-to-door gun “buyback,” but that is OK because they had good intentions. Amusingly, they attacked me when we pointed out that they had broken the law.

— Something not too surprising to those who follow our work, a new survey shows that most Americans believe that the most important purpose of the Second Amendment is to ensure personal safety.

I discussed our new annual report on concealed handgun permits on radio stations from Armed American Radio’s national show, Alabama’s WERC, and western Montana’s KGVO. A new Fox News story also extensively discussed our report. Other interviews focused on our research on misinformation in the gun control debate were on Sebastian Gorka’s national radio show, Alaska’s Michael Dukes show, and Rick Green’s podcast.

Another op-ed of mine discusses a new survey showing that eight percent of people who voted by absentee or mail-in ballots in 2020 say that they were rewarded for voting. Absentee and mail-in ballots allow people to get paid for voting because they can show to the buyer how they voted. If this survey is anywhere near accurate, it would have made a difference in the out come of the 2020 election.

We have also continued collecting cases where people legally carrying guns in public have stopped crimes. Here are the cases that we collected for September.

We are finishing up our end-of-the-year fundraising. We can still receive matching donations from two different sources until January 1st, and we haven’t yet matched those donations. The first generous offer from Joseph Olson, a retired law school professor in Minnesota, means we will receive up to $10,000 for new donors who help us out over the next month. However, there are a couple of restrictions before we get this money: 1) the contributions must come from people who haven’t previously donated to us, and 2) Olson will match donations up to $200. To receive all $10,000, we will have to get 50 gifts of $200 or, say, 100 donations of $100 or some other similar breakdown. The other matching donation is from an anonymous donor and is unrestricted. Any donations up to the first $15,000 we receive will be matched dollar for dollar.

This means that each dollar donated from new donors up to $200 will be tripled, and all other donations up to $15,000 will be doubled. Our fundraising has started off slowly, and I hope that we can pick this up some.

I try not to bother you all more than twice a year, and your support is incredibly important for the work that we need to do. And I want you to know how much we greatly appreciate your support.

Thank you very much.

For information on activities at the Crime Prevention Research Center, here is a link to our “info deck.” Please view in full-screen mode and scroll using the arrow buttons at the bottom of the screen.