Every time I see Dana Loesch and John Lott on the same screen I wonder who is really who. One looks like she had a sex-change operation, the other masqueraded on the internet as a female, altogether an interesting pair. And it really gets interesting when they open their mouths because the misstatements aren’t just a little bit here and there; it’s almost like they really want you to think that they don’t know anything at all. Dana refers to information on a website about concealed-carry scofflaws in Texas and gets it completely wrong, Lott disparages the Violence Policy Center’s report on concealed-carry and completely distorts what the report actually says.

loesch But the dumbest part of their conversation is an attempt to smear Shannon Watts by claiming that the reports issued by Everytown on mass shootings in gun-free zones are incorrect. So I went to Lott’s website and read his critique of the Everytown research, including his analysis of every shooting compiled by Everytown to back up their position that most mass shootings occur in places where guns are allowed.

This is where I begin to suspect that creatures like Lott don’t understand what’s in their own minds. If Dana Loesch wants to parrot the prevailing pro-gun nonsense I’m not surprised nor concerned; she’s nothing but a two-bit entertainer filling up some air-space for The Blaze. But when John Lott, who told Sean Hannity that he was a “professor” for “most of his life” (even though he has never held professorial rank at any educational institution of any kind) responds to the solid Everytown research by consciously saying things that simply aren’t true, we’ve reached the point of no return in attempting to engage the pro-gun gang in any kind of serious give-and-take.

The Everytown report covered 133 mass shootings between 2009 and 2015, a mass shooting defined as a single incident in which at least four persons died. Interestingly, the overall profile which emerges from these incidents is not that different from what would be found if someone analyzed 133 gun homicides without regard to whether they resulted in multiple victims or not. In the mass shootings, the majority took place in homes and were precipitated by a domestic dispute. The median age of the shooters was 34 and one-third should not have been able to legally acquire a gun. Finally, less than 15% of these shootings took place in ‘gun-free’ zones.

It figures that a report finding little connection between mass shootings and ‘gun-free’ zones would provoke a rebuttal from John Lott. The report, he says “muddies the discussion on mass public shootings by including shootings in private homes along with ones in public places, and the vast majority of the cases they include are in private homes.” He then goes on to make an even more absurd (or bizarre) criticism by claiming that any public place located in a city which doesn’t routinely issue concealed-carry licenses should also be considered a ‘gun-free’ zone. His comment about Boston in this regard is simply wrong and on this point Lott either doesn’t know what he’s talking about or he’s just stating a lie.

Let me break the news gently to John Lott and pro-gun lapdogs like Dana Loesch: anyone who has unquestioned access to a private residence is, to all intents and purposes, walking into a public space when he enters that home. The issue of ‘public’ versus ‘private’ is a red herring of immense proportions when we are talking about mass killings in which someone uses a gun. And by the way, have you ever heard of a murder in which someone killed four or more persons with a knife? I know of one.

There is no credible evidence whatsoever that ‘gun-free’ zones represent some kind of attraction to someone who wants to commit mayhem with a gun. There’s a load of credible evidence which links mass murders to the use of a gun. Lott and Loesch aren’t interested in evidence; they’re interested in filling up media space with their unique brand of hot air.