from http://timlambert.org/2003/08#0813
Lott has a letter in the 21 July St Louis Post-Dispatch, replying to a letter that cited Ayres and Donohue's study in the Stanford Law Review. He writes: Yet next to that article in the same publication appears another study by Plassmann and Whitley, who examine three additional years worth of data and find "annual reductions in murder rates between 1.5 and 2.3 percent for each additional year that a right-to-carry law is in effect. ... the total benefit from reduced crimes usually ranges between about $2 billion and $3 billion per year." And next to that article in the same publication appears a response by Ayres and Donohue that showed that the reductions claimed by Plassman and Whitley were the product of coding errors in Lott's data, and that when the errors were corrected there were no significant reductions. Specifically, Table 3a of Plassmann and Whitley shows a reduction in murder of 2.0 percent each year in the spline model. After correcting the coding errors, Ayres and Donohue found the figure was actually 1.0 percent (which is outside the range given by Lott above and not significant). Lott was well aware of this back in April. How can he continue to pretend that the coding errors do not exist? -- Tim
