More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun Control Laws

Lott, John R. More Guns, Less Crime: Understanding Crime and Gun-Control Laws. University
of Chicago Press, 2020.

This book goes into detail on the Second Amendment in the Constitution and proves our

rights of bearing arms by using real data and facts to prove that crime does dimmish when people

are allowed to carry firearms. In the Introduction of the book, the author proves that crime rates

decrease when people are more and more armed. In this example, he used a neighborhood. Since

there would be more residents being armed, crime rates would decrease, and the number of

arrests would increase. Furthermore, removing this right would hold the adverse effect. The

crime rates would heavily increase, and the number of arrests would then heavily decrease. Just

that bit of information should tell people that carrying firearms would be very beneficial for

teachers who will want to concealed carry a firearm.

This book helps me know that this is a credible source because the author says that he used

the FBI database for crime rates for about the three-thousand five hundred counties in the

country. Furthermore, he uses tables to help display the data that he found. For instance, in the

Introduction, he created a table displaying the relationships between murderers and victims. This

table can be used to easily dismantle some of the stereotypes for what kinds of people are the

murderer or get murdered and lots of other issues. Seeing that I have this kind of knowledge, I

think proving my point will be a lot easier since the author used such a wide database and other

resources.
Lott, John R. “Schools That Allow Teachers to Carry Guns Are Extremely Safe: Data on the
Rate of Shootings and Accidents in Schools That Allow Teachers to Carry.” SSRN, 29 May
2019, https://poseidon01.ssrn.com/delivery.php?
ID=8790691230850141250850700861220000890020480190330510751020641020040030
6710502510209601910001811506011311102209700006711509800812109008600102300
0097087003115024032048023126097075102006119110089117114089065065126067079
023096079110124084004094094102&EXT=pdf&INDEX=TRUE.

This is a report written also by John R. Lott that goes into details about teachers carrying

firearms specifically. He proves again with data that schools benefit from teachers being able to

carry firearms. “Twenty states currently allow teachers and staff to carry guns to varying degrees

on school property, so we don’t need to guess how the policy would work.” (Lott) This essay

was made in the light of all the school shootings from within the past twenty-two years. It all

started with the Columbine school shooting

Just by reading the title of the report, I figured out that John R. Lott is the President of the

Crime Prevention Research Center. That makes him a very credible source because throughout a

book and reports, he backs up his thesis with valid data. Not only this, but he used his other

reports and books to help support his case for this report. He also used tables and charts to plot

his data from previous sources. Like I previously stated before, those tables help easily dismantle

some stereotypes of firearm safety and general firearm knowledge. This resource will be useful

in my paper on how teachers should be allowed to carry firearms in schools.

Baranauskas, Andrew J. “Public Opinion on Support for Arming Teachers with Guns in the
United States.” Taylor & Francis, Taylor & Francis Online, 29 Nov. 2020,
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07418825.2020.1849360?
casa_token=2GyNWzjDWScAAAAA
%3A9TRoh1yUMVhM3DtjYcfDZg3dAlDtSCkIituRAdHRpbg86HrRoYSd51uY_WDROj
Rgm40ZZqnwT-Su.

This is an article written on January 9th, 2020 and addresses his opinion on what his

thoughts are when it comes to arming teachers with firearms in schools. Like John Lott, Andrew

Baranauskas used real data to prove his point on where he stood in this heated issue. He uses

these data to also show what other people have thought about this issue. Within the introduction

section of the article, he agrees that public opinion is “largely divided on the issue and split on

political lines.” (Baranauskas) He finds that the opinions are heavily mixed. One side being that

students don’t feel safe and another side being that it largely increases the safety inside of the

school.

Andrew Baranauskas works at the Department of Criminal Justice in Brockport, NY. He

has collected the data from various sources that are connected to the government, like the MSD

Public Safety Commission. Knowing that Baranauskas works at the Department of Criminal

Justice and has sources like the MSD Public Safety Commission, this makes me very confident

in this source. His opinion was created when the talk to arm teachers started after the Marjory

Stoneman Douglas High School shooting in 2018. The sources help back it up very well.
Lott, John R. “Health Behavior Research - Newprairiepress.org.” New Prairie Press, Dec. 2018,
https://newprairiepress.org/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1024&context=hbr.

Another source created by John R. Lott goes into the specific topic of if teachers should

be able to carry guns inside of schools. Again, he uses facts and data to prove what the right

answer should be. For example, in the second paragraph, he states: “One thing is clear after each

mass public school shooting: neither background checks nor assault weapons bans would have

prevented the attack.” (Lott) He goes on to explain each security measure and how it couldn’t

stop a shooting. With those facts in mind, it’s an easy opinion to put together on this whole issue.

John R. Lott is very credible. He has written numerous reports and books that help you

figure out what your opinion on pressing issues should be when it comes to gun rights. In this

report, he listed 18 sources to help him with this report. Most of the sources are from the Crime

Prevention Research Center. These sources are all connected to the school shootings that have

happened within the past 22 years. This guy knows what he’s talking about.
Wallace, Lacey N. “Guns in School: Juveniles and Teachers.” IGI Global, https://www.igi-
global.com/viewtitlesample.aspx?id=214243&ptid=198505&t=guns+in+school
%3a+juveniles+and+teachers.

Lacey goes into detail with this by starting off with how certain shootings began. She

takes it to a place where she says that children are more likely to be killed as they are outside of

school if the students bring guns into the school. She has a table on the report that shows that in

2004, out of 100,000 students, 1,385 of them are killed due to firearm by any case. In 2015, that

number grew to 1,458. This can be prevented if teachers were allowed to carry firearms. It would

create a safer school environment; it would create protection for them and for their students.

Lacey Wallace was a student at Pennsylvania State University when this was written.

Unfortunately, I’m only able to access the free version since the full version costs almost $40.

However, she backs herself up by citing good sources and has the table. She seems like a good

resource to go to if you have to help prove a point.