Scholarly Definitions Are Fighting Words in Gun-Law Theorist's Defamation Suit

By DAVID GLENN

In the late 1990s, the economist John R. Lott Jr. proposed a controversial idea that he spelled out in the title of a book, More Guns, Less Crime. Using a huge cache of crime data, he argued that states that passed laws permitting citizens to carry concealed weapons saw significant declines in robbery, rape, and homicide,...