Politics: Gun and Identity Control
In a past position, I worked on the question of violence prevention and gun control. I am fiercely opposed to guns and I believe their proliferation in this country is a crime against all future generations. Just ask the nine or ten folks killed each day by guns.
Anyhow, there is obviously a huge community on the internet and in the academic community that debates the gun issue to no end. Points are made and refuted, research disputed, personalities formed. One of the most prominent researchers/academics to rise in the past few years on the gun issue is John Lott, Jr. The darling of the right, funded through dodgy links to the NRA, and one of America's most ardent supporters of the belief that more armed regular citizens means less crime, Lott has managed to gain a stature most academicians go their whole lives without.
Within the community, there are questions about Lott that go unanswered: How did he lose his position at Yale (Lott departed the academic world in 2001, becoming a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute)? What is the status of a 1997 survey he now claims to have conducted himself on US opinions on guns?
Recently, as this post explains Lott admitted to roaming the internet's world of blogs and usenet lists under an alias, passionately defending his own work and attacking his critics without the accountability that such actions would require if he acted in his own name. Sharp-witted blogger Julian Sanchez noticed an inconsistency in a note from Lott's alias, did some research and discovered that emails from "Mary Rosh" and Lott both originated with the same IP address. At the bottom of the post, Lott confirms that he is "Mary Rosh."
Sanchez does state that this is not academic misconduct, and he is right. But it is lying. It is playing with facts, and misrepresenting the truth to protect oneself. It's dishonest, and it calls into question whether Lott, who uses an alias to defend himself, should be trusted selling America on a heavily armed and very dangerous future.
In a past position, I worked on the question of violence prevention and gun control. I am fiercely opposed to guns and I believe their proliferation in this country is a crime against all future generations. Just ask the nine or ten folks killed each day by guns.
Anyhow, there is obviously a huge community on the internet and in the academic community that debates the gun issue to no end. Points are made and refuted, research disputed, personalities formed. One of the most prominent researchers/academics to rise in the past few years on the gun issue is John Lott, Jr. The darling of the right, funded through dodgy links to the NRA, and one of America's most ardent supporters of the belief that more armed regular citizens means less crime, Lott has managed to gain a stature most academicians go their whole lives without.
Within the community, there are questions about Lott that go unanswered: How did he lose his position at Yale (Lott departed the academic world in 2001, becoming a research fellow at the American Enterprise Institute)? What is the status of a 1997 survey he now claims to have conducted himself on US opinions on guns?
Recently, as this post explains Lott admitted to roaming the internet's world of blogs and usenet lists under an alias, passionately defending his own work and attacking his critics without the accountability that such actions would require if he acted in his own name. Sharp-witted blogger Julian Sanchez noticed an inconsistency in a note from Lott's alias, did some research and discovered that emails from "Mary Rosh" and Lott both originated with the same IP address. At the bottom of the post, Lott confirms that he is "Mary Rosh."
Sanchez does state that this is not academic misconduct, and he is right. But it is lying. It is playing with facts, and misrepresenting the truth to protect oneself. It's dishonest, and it calls into question whether Lott, who uses an alias to defend himself, should be trusted selling America on a heavily armed and very dangerous future.
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