10/14/2013

Piers Morgan goes on rants against those who appeared on his show, making fun of my scars from surgery

Here is Piers Morgan's discussion in The Guardian newspaper.  I am tired of being called part of the "gun lobby," but Piers attacking my eyebrows, seriously?  My eyebrows are deformed because I had a tumor removed from my forehead when I was a child.  Piers was literally just a few feet from me during these interviews and could easily see my scars.  I looked at the video and I also can't see any half-smirks on my face.  The discussion in Piers Morgan's piece started at about 4:20 into the clip.  Piers' misleading and inaccurate numbers on gun murders in Britain are available here.  From The Guardian:

We'd booked a pro-gun author called John R Lott, whose book is More Guns, Less Crime.  
"He fired over 100 rounds and killed 20 children," I told him. "Twenty children! At what point do you gun lobby guys say: 'We get it. It's time for change'?" 
"Right, it is time," he replied, to my astonishment. 
"Time to do what?" 
"To get rid of some of these gun laws that cause –" 
"To get rid of gun laws?" 
He nodded. "Look at what has happened. All these attacks this year have occurred where guns are banned. Look at the Aurora movie theatre shooting …" 
Unbelievable. This clown had actually come on my show on the night of this dreadful atrocity to advocate getting rid of existing gun control laws? I stared at Lott, who has weird pointy bushy eyebrows, and a permanent sneery half-smirk on his face. I wanted to reach across the desk and slap it off him. "There are about 35 gun murders a year in Britain," I shouted. "There are nearly 12,000 murders a year from guns in this country. When are you guys going to focus on that and stop telling me the answer is more guns? It is not the answer. Three hundred million guns in America isn't enough for you? How many more kids have to die before you guys say we want less guns and not more?" 
Lott said: "How else can you stop someone from shooting people?" 
And there, right there, was the utter insanity of the pro-gun lobby laid bare. They genuinely have no idea how you stop someone shooting people unless everyone else has a gun too. 
It's like the wild west has been beamed into modern-day America. And it's as terrifying as it's stupid. . . .
Of course, Piers makes multiple mistakes on the data.  When he wrote this book or did the show, the latest FBI UCR data was for 2011.  In that year, there were 8,653 firearm murders, not 12,000.  One could say that over the last four years that it has bounced around 9,000 firearm murders.  He also gets the number of gun murders wrong in the Britain, which was 73 in 2011 (including Scotland, England and Wales) and, unlike the US, they only count firearm murders where a conviction occurred.  Obviously there is still a big difference, but my response would still be that Britain's murder rate was even lower prior to their gun laws.  That the murder rate or gun murder rate has been very low in Britain before they had any gun control laws, but Piers would never deal with this issue.  Of course the substance here is more important than the specific facts (though it does show that Piers has a desire to embellish), but he never deals with the arguments of those on the other side.

The complete transcript of the conversation that Piers and I had is available here.
MORGAN: You just tried to make out, it's just an average old gun. He fired over 100 rounds and he killed 20 children. Twenty Children between five and 10. At what point do you gun lobby guys say, we get it? It's time for change?  
LOTT: Right, it is time.  
MORGAN: Time to do what?  
LOTT: To get rid of some of these gun laws that cause --  
MORGAN: To get rid of the gun laws?  
LOTT: Look at what has happened, all these attacks this year have occurred where guns are banned. Look at the Aurora movie theater shooting.  
MORGAN: What the hell has that got to do with it? Seriously? What has that got to do with it?  
LOTT: You never let me explain. Can I say something?  
MORGAN: -- gun-free zone.  
LOTT: Look at the movie theater one, for example. There were seven movie theaters showing the movie "Batman" movie within a 20 minute drive of where the killer lived. Only one of those banned guns. He didn't go to the movie theater closest to his home. He didn't go to the movie theater with the largest screen. He went to the one movie theater that banned guns. Now if you look at bans generally, you can't point to a place, Chicago, D.C., where we ban guns -- murder rates and violent crimes went up afterwards. In the U.K. and Jamaica, Ireland, island nations that have banned guns -- you can't find a place where murder rates have actually gone down. They have gone up usually by large amounts.

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3 Comments:

Blogger Voolfie said...

I shouldn't worry...Old Piers is likely going to be taken off the air shortly. Meanwhile, your books continue to sell. :)

10/14/2013 2:41 PM  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

I wonder each time you appear on his show, why do you bother? Anything you say he will use against you, he will shout you down & cut you off to stop you from making a point. He uses you only to give the appearance of a fair debate or discussion. He also has called or framed you as a "gun expert". I don't think you are or claim to be. You are a numbers expert, an economists who has done the most complete study on gun crime. That does not make you an expert on guns.

10/14/2013 3:56 PM  
Blogger mtman2 said...

Well he didn't shout down Ted Nugent or former gov. of Minnesota. He was a good little student of the facts presented.

6/05/2017 11:18 AM  

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