Gun Expert Tells Tennessee Lawmakers Firearms Are The Best Way To Stop Shootings

 Updated at 10:43 with response from John Lott.

Mass shootings. And how to prevent them.

That’s what was on Tennessee lawmakers’ minds as they opened debate for the year on the state’s gun laws.

Helping to guide their thoughts was a prominent researcher, who argues more guns mean less danger.

John Lott is an economist by trade, but his academic focus is on guns. He first became famous in the mid-1990s when he
released a book that argued places that allow concealed carry have less crime than those that don’t.

Now, Lott is extending that argument to mass shootings. He says attackers pick out places like college campuses, movie theaters and churches that ban guns.

“Virtually all these cases,” Lott told state lawmakers at a hearing on Tuesday, “these attacks take place where victims can’t defend themselves.”

That conclusion
has been questioned. Critics say there’s not much evidence to show gun bans have any impact on public shootings, and that most mass shootings actually take place in private homes. (Lott
responds that his research looks at public mass shootings, not private ones.)

But state Sen. Lee Harris said Lott’s argument is troubling — even if you accept its premise. Harris, D-Memphis, said it would just lead to an arms race between law-abiding citizens and psychopaths.

“It seems to me they’d get bigger guns, quicker trigger fingers and more devastation,” said Harris. “I’m just afraid of taking your tactic to address mass shootings.”

State lawmakers could vote this spring to let gun owners carry in
private schools and
public college campuses, and to make property owners — businesses, cities or institutions —
liable for attacks if they ban guns.

The specter of mass shootings will hang over all of those debates.