Gun Worshipper Lott, At it Again

Mr John R. Lott Jr is a man on a mission. He is also a man who is in love with all devices explosive. He’s partial to firearms;--really partial. He is strongly opposed to  government attempts to regulate them and writes endless articles and books putting out his anti gun-control philosophy.        

His object all sublime, based on what he’s written, is to put as many unregulated  firearms (and explosives) into the hands of as many private citizens in America as is humanly possible. As to guns, that's quite a large number. And an unnecessary goal, one would think, since there are already an estimated 230 millions guns floating around the US now.

Anyway, as I said, Mr Lott puts his beliefs into practice by writing pieces for main-stream newspapers and right-wing journals--pushing gun-ownership and fighting gun-control. He uses a variety of arguments.  Some are outrageous, others illogical, still others, counter-intuitive. Some are just plain stupid and insensitive. Some contain all these elements. 

Which are the sure signs of a fanatic. 

A good example of this kind of thing  appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Op-Ed section,  dated June 30th. Just in time for the July 4th holiday. It's entitled, Exploding the Fireworks Safety 'Threat'. You can read it on Mr Lott’s website at www.johnrlott.com. You can read a lot more of Lott’s stuff there too, if you want to.  

But this July 4th, Mr Lott, not satisfied with pushing guns-for-everyone, is applying his philosophy of guns and gun control to the question of fireworks control.

As is the case of firearms, many jurisdictions, state and local, of have laws and ordinances controlling fireworks. In many counties and cities, fireworks are banned altogether. The reason fireworks are controlled is pretty obvious to most people, except of course, to Mr Lott.

Unregulated fireworks tend to cause, yes, you guessed it, fires. They also cause injuries. Burns, actually. Especially to children and especially in certain specific areas of the body, like eyes, ears, face and hands.

But according to Mr Lott, these injuries are minimal. “Trivial” is the word he uses.  He minimizes the injuries that occur when victims of fireworks injuries are admitted to emergency rooms. But of course, in the real world, a visit to an emergency room because of a fireworks-related injury is not trivial; at least not to the patient being admitted. And certainly not if the patient is a child. As many patients are.

According to an estimate by the Consumer Products Safety Commission 9,300 fireworks-related injuries occurred in 2003. Of these, 6,800 injuries were treated in hospital emergency departments during the period June 20 through July 20. Almost half the reported fireworks-related injuries occurred to children aged 15 and younger.

Mr Lott goes   argues in his piece,  that controls over fireworks (like guns) should be abolished, since they are not perfectly effective.

Of course  that sort of argument could be used to abolish all sorts of laws against activities and products that society considers dangerous,  because such laws  can never be 100% enforced.

Mr Lott’s arguments against fireworks control are part and parcel of his arguments against gun-control. In both cases he says, laws against fireworks and guns are not 100% effective, so they should be repealed.

The implication of course, is, that the more unregulated explosives and explosive devices in the hands of private citizens, the safer  everyone will be from explosive-related injuries.

Right, just like the safer everyone will be when everyone possesses a gun. Or,  that the more guns in circulation the fewer the gun-related deaths and injuries there will be.

Mr Lott’s arguments are essentially worthless and inapplicable to the real world.

Happily, most people already know this and are more than happy to control firearms and keep dangerous explosives, including fireworks out of the hands of private citizens.

At least where possible.

Punditwalla--