Summary:

• Researcher John Lott claims that Child Access Prevention (CAP) laws requiring individuals to secure their guns at home cost more lives than they save because, he says, they slow down access to a gun during a home invasion.
• The research consistently shows that safe storage laws prevent unintentional shootings and adolescent suicide.
• Enacting a federal CAP law with a felony penalty that holds gun owners accountable for safely storing firearms will help keep guns out of children’s hands and prevent suicides and unintentional shootings.
• Lott cites only his own outdated researcher to make his claim. Other academic research does not support his claim.

Lott’s Claim:

In his May 24, 2018 op-ed in The Hill, Lott urges readers to disregard Texas Lt. Gov. Dan Patrick’s advice that parents do a better job locking up their guns after an attack at Santa Fe High School. “We all want to do something, but everyone locking up their guns will cost more lives than it saves,’ Lott said.

Lott cites his own research to claim that “requiring individuals to lock up their guns in certain states made it more difficult for those people to successfully defend their families.” He argues that Child Access Prevention (CAP) laws embolden criminals to murder, rape, and burglarize people in their homes because they “can’t readily access a gun to protect themselves and their families.”

Lott further claims that unintentional child shootings are rare, and those that do occur are the result “…of adult males in their mid-to-late 20s who have criminal histories. Many are drug addicts or alcoholics.” In a 2014 Fox News op-ed criticizing an ABC News report on the risks of having guns in the home, Lott claims that two thirds of unintentional gun deaths involving young children “are not shots fired by other little kids but rather by adult males with criminal backgrounds.”

The Facts:

Lott’s most glaring errors surround his claim that safe storage laws cost lives by preventing defensive gun use. Lott cites only two studies: his own outdated 2001 study in the Journal of Law and Economics and his 2003 book, The Bias Against Guns. His studies claiming that CAP laws increase crime rely extensively on dubious econometric practices. 

Reliable research reveals that not only does a firearm in the home endanger children, but that strong CAP laws mitigate this risk and save lives by reducing both unintentional shootings and firearm suicides by youths. 

A 2018 study found that strong CAP laws were associated with significant reductions in all firearm injuries, including self-inflicted and unintentional shootings of children.

A 2005 study found a reduction in firearm injuries in homes with children and teenagers that keep a gun locked and unloaded while storing ammunition in a separate locked location. Kellermann’s often-cited 1998 study found that for every time a gun is used legally in self-defense at home, there are “four unintentional shootings, seven criminal assaults or homicides, and 11 attempted or completed suicides.”

Lott attempts to minimize unintentional child shootings by undercounting the shootings. Although Lott correctly notes that CDC data shows an average of 59 children are unintentionally shot and killed each year, he fails to disclose that researchers have conclusively revealed that this number is a significant underestimate. In 2016, the CDC admitted that its estimate is low because of discrepancies in how coroners label unintentional shooting deaths. 

Lott falsely states that most fatal, unintentional shootings of children result from guns fired by adult males in their 20s who have criminal histories. According to National Violent Death Reporting System data compiled by the Harvard Injury Control Research Center, from 2003-2006, two-thirds of fatal unintentional shootings of children under the age of 14 were committed by other children. When self-inflicted, unintentional deaths are included, the figure rises to 74%. 

Lott overestimates the frequency of defensive gun uses (DGUs). Empirical data compiled by the Gun Violence Archive reveal fewer than 2,100 verified DGUs annually. Further, Harvard research indicates that in the rare circumstance a firearm is used in self-defense, it is no more effective at preventing injury than doing nothing.

Lott’s Counter:

On his own website, Lott reiterated his claim that most unintentional gun deaths of children are a result of shots fired by adult males with criminal histories, in response to a May 2018 op-ed published in The Hill by GVPedia’s founder Devin Hughes. He  quoted his 2003 book The Bias Against Guns, “Of the fifty-six accidental gun deaths involving children under ten in 1998 and the thirty-one in 1999, only eight and six respectively were shot by another child or themselves. The same statistic for 1997 was only five.”

Lott criticizes the articles Hughes references, saying they are “purely cross-sectional data.” Lott says a third study supports his claim.

Lott defends his use of the CDC’s data despite undercounting incidents by noting that  other databases rely on news reports to identify cases and this is a “very poor approach.”

Rebuttal: 

Lott’s counter cites his own 2003 book to undercount the number of unintentional child shootings and support his claim that most of these shootings involve criminal adults. Lott does link to a third study but, again, it’s his own study with flawed methodology. The third study is his 1998 book More Guns Less Crime.

Recent research has shown that Lott’s numbers severely undercount the extent of the problem. A 2016 Associated Press and USA Today report found more than 1,000 deaths and injuries from unintentional shootings from January 1, 2014 to June 30, 2016, ninety of whom were 3-year-olds.

According to the Children’s Firearm Safety Alliance, 132 children ages 0-17 were killed and 216 were injured in 2017 – all as a result of a child gaining access to an irresponsibly stored firearm. Between 2016 and May 26, 2018, 137 toddlers (between the ages of zero and three) picked up a loaded, unsecured gun and pulled the trigger, resulting in the deaths of 51 children and two adults, and injuring 74 children and nine adults.

Sources:

John Lott, “Locking guns won’t do anything to save lives,” The Hill, May 24, 2018
Devin Hughes, Beth Roth, and Jen Pauliukonis, “Gun control that works: Safe storage saves lives, The Hill, May 31, 2018
John Lott, “At The Hill Newspaper: Locking Guns Won’t Do Anything To Save Lives,” Crime Prevention Research Center, May 31, 2018
John Lott, The Bias Against Guns, 2003
John Lott, More Guns, Less Crime, 1998 
John Lott, “SAFE-STORAGE GUN LAWS: ACCIDENTAL DEATHS, SUICIDES, AND CRIME,” Journal of Law and Economics, Oct. 2001
John Lott, “ABC News reports on guns mislead Americans,” Fox News, Feb. 7, 2014 (Updated May 7, 2015)
Evan DeFilippis and Devin Hughes, “Guns Kill Children: The overwhelming evidence that pediatricians are right and the NRA is wrong,” Slate, June 17, 2014
Evan DeFilippis and Devin Hughes, “Shooting Down the Gun Lobby’s Favorite ‘Academic’: A Lott of Lies,” Armed with Reason, December 1, 2014
Emma Hamilton, Charles Miller, Charles Cox, Kevin Lally, and Mary Austin, “Variability of child access prevention laws and pediatric firearm injuries,” Journal of Trauma and Acute Care Surgery, April 2018
David Grossman, Beth Mueller, Christine Riedy, et al., “Gun Storage Practices and Risk of Youth Suicide and Unintentional Firearm Injuries,” JAMA, February 9, 2005
Arthur Kellermann, Grant Somes, Frederick Rivara, Roberta Lee, and Joyce Banton, “Injuries and deaths due to firearms in the home,” Journal of Trauma, August 1998
Ryan Foley, “New CDC data understate accidental shooting deaths of kids,” USA Today, December 9, 2016
Ryan Foley, Larry Fenn, Nick Penzenstadler, “Chronicle of agony: Gun accidents kill at least 1 kid every other day,” USA Today, October 14, 2016
“Past Summary Ledgers,” Gun Violence Archive (accessed January 26, 2021)
David Hemenway and Sara Solnick, “The epidemiology of self-defense gun use: Evidence from the National Crime Victimization Surveys 2007–2011,” Preventative Medicine, October 2015