"Well , it was n't just a footnote that Lott supposedly lost . It was all his raw data to support his claim that 98 % of defensive gun uses do n't involve the firing of the weapon . And Lott did lie because changed his story about who conducted the story . '' When Lott cited the statistic peripherally on page three of his book , he attributed it to 'national surveys . ' In the second edition , he changed the citation to ' a national survey that I conducted . ' He has also incorrectly attributed the figure to newspaper polls and Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck. `` http : //www.townhall.com/columnists/m ... 20030205.shtml So was it a newspaper poll ? Did Kleck conduct it ? Now Lott claims he did it . If true , he must have been lying when he said that others conducted the study . '' He has forgotten the names of the students who allegedly helped with the survey and who supposedly dialed thousands of survey respondents long-distance from their own dorm rooms using survey software Lott ca n't identify or produce. `` Interesting how he ca n't remember anyone who helped him ."
"Yet , tehre seem to be people who remember taking the poll . Regardless , in his report it was a minor point . From a realistic standpoint , it took nothing away from the report when he removed it . Lott was investigated for this , just like Bellisiles . He was not found guilty of any academic misconduct ( unlike Bellesiles ) . When you consider the thousands fo data sets that he compiled to put that report together , the folks investigating him did n't think it was at all unbelieveable that he scoudn ; t remeber the details of where that number came from . Again , though , he ended up removing that number from his report ( the single place that it appeared ) and apologised for using it since he could not provide the raw data or a good cite for it . Here is how he responded to the article you link to : http : //johnrlott.tripod.com/malkinsoped.html It is rather interesting , and well documented . It addresses a couple of inacuracies in the article , such as the misconseption that he had attributed the disputed numner to Kleck ."
"was n't just a footnote that Lott supposedly lost . all his raw data to support his claim that 98 % of defensive gun uses do n't involve the firing of the weapon . Lott did lie he changed the citation to ' a national survey that I conducted . ' also incorrectly attributed figure newspaper polls and Florida State University criminologist Gary Kleck"
"seem to be people who remember taking the poll . it was a minor point . was not found guilty of any academic misconduct , he ended up removing that number from his report apologised for using it since he could not provide the raw data or a good cite for it ."