(If you want to see or follow the links in the stuff below, you have
to go to:
http://cgi.cse.unsw.edu.au/~lambert/cgi-bin/blog/guns/Lott/Appalachian/#0908 )
On his blog, Lott offers an excuse for the fact that in his book and
on his blog he had not mentioned that Ted Besen contradicts Bridges'
claim to have used a gun to disarm Odighizuwa:
I have gotten an e-mail asking about the role that Ted Besen
played in stopping the Appalachian Law School attack during
January 2002. While I had seen and referenced a story by Rick
Montgomery, a reporter for the Kansas City Star, I hadn't read
down to the last couple hundred words of the 1,400 word piece that
he published in March 2002. Montgomery's piece contains a quote
from Besen claiming that the attacker put his gun down before
Mikael Gross and Tracy Bridges arrived at the scene. (Montgomery
has seen copies of everything that I wrote on the incident and he
has never mentioned these facts to me.)
The story about the Appalachian School of Law shootings is Lott's best
example of media bias against guns. He devotes several pages to it in
his book and presents his version of what happened whenever he gives a
talk promoting his book. Montgomery's article in the Kansas City Star
is one of only two news stories on the allegations of bias in the
coverage and Lott quotes extensively from it. The other, longer,
article appeared in Legal Times and Lott read to the end of that one,
because he quotes the last sentence, and even telephoned the person
quoted in that sentence to obtain more information. Lott also wrote a
lengthy response to my first analysis where I quoted the entire last
part of Montgomery's article.
Given all of this, is Lott's claim not to have read the last part of
Montgomery's article even slightly plausible? And even if we believe
his claim, why should we believe his claims about new stories being
biased when he can't be bothered to read all of each news story?
Lott goes on to argue that of the news stories that mention Ted Besen
"not one of the stories provide information that is consistent with
what Besen told the KC Star". This is not true. Of the 14 stories that
mention Besen the only ones that are not consistent with Besen's
account are the three stories that mention that a gun was used to
disarm Odighizuwa. Indeed, the whole point of Lott's discussion is
that there were only three such stories put of hundreds of stories
covering the matter. One of the stories that is consistent is Bridges'
interview on the Today Show. These are Bridges' own words, on live TV:
We seen the shooter, started to approach him, stopped at my
vehicle, and got out my handgun, and started to approach Peter. At
that time, Peter throwed up his hands and throwed his weapon down.
Note that he does not say that he pointed his gun at Odighizuwa--that detail was added
later.
Lott also states:
One explanation that appears consistent with both Bridges'
comments and Besen's later statement in the KC Star is that Besen
was closer to the attacker than either Bridges or Gross and
wouldn't have clearly seen what Gross and Bridges were doing.
This is not consistent with Besen's statement. Besen said that
Odighizuwa put the gun down before Bridges and Gross arrived. That is,
he saw Odighizuwa put the gun down and he saw Bridges arrive and
Odighizuwa put the gun down first. Recall that Besen and Bridges were
police officers who were together when the shooting started. Besen
would certainly have been on the lookout to see when Bridges arrived
to support him.
Note also that none of the accounts from other witnesses like Jody
Mitchell, Robert Deatherage, Jack Briggs and Todd Ross mention any
defensive gun use. It seems unlikely that they could have all missed
it.
--
Tim
