At the NRA Annual Meeting in Atlanta in 2025, noted researcher and author John Lott gave several seminars. They included three seminars on “Gun Control Myths”, a seminar on “Hollywood’s Bias Against Guns”, and two seminars on “The FBI Crime Data is Politicized and a Mess”.  This correspondent considers John a colleague and a friend and has read and studied John’s academic work for decades.

When attending the seminar on The FBI Crime Data is Politicized and a Mess on Sunday, April 27th, much of the material was familiar. Some material was unfamiliar. This correspondent accepted that the FBI had refused to cooperate by withholding data when John was part of the first Trump administration in 2020. The resistance was much more extensive than previously understood. A voice recording of John’s presentation is available at Crimeresearch.org.

Lott found significant anomalies in the way the FBI handles “active shooter” data.  John and the Crime Reduction Research Center have shown that many “active shooter” incidents are missing or mischaracterized in FBI data.

In the National Instant background Check System (NICS) data, it appears most of the denials are false positives. Hard data on the errors found in the NICS system is not available.  John has pointed out there are very few prosecutions of people who have been denied by the NICS system compared to the number of those denied. John stated that NICS denials are often based on the phonetic spelling of the last name. The denials are not done with high levels of certainty. Because many people in the same ethnic group have similar sounding names, and because Blacks and Hispanics have much higher rates of felony convictions than Whites or Asians, it is likely Black and Hispanic people are denied from purchasing firearms in the NICS system at a much higher rates than people who are not Black or Hispanic.

In October 2020, John Lott was appointed as a senior adviser for research and statistics at the Office of Justice Programs. This was the second time he had worked for the government in D.C. When he got to DC, John went to the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS) and proposed a study of the NICS denials, including data on race and sex. The BJS thought it was a great idea.

The BJS sent the request for data to the FBI. went through the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS). The BJS thought the idea of analyzing the NICS data was very good. When the Bureau of Justice Statistics contacted the FBI, the FBI responded, claiming there was no way we could get this done before January 20th. In any case, we are sure the Biden Administration will not be interested. After more emails and calls, the FBI’s response was: We just can’t think of any reason why anyone would want to break down this data by race and sex.

John responded: “You guys break down everything by race and sex.  What’s the big deal with this?”

The BJS tells the FBI, it is not your decision to make. We decide what to look at and study. Your job is to collect and give us the data.  The FBI refuses and the BJS persists. Finally, the FBI says the BJS will have to submit a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request. Such a response is very unusual between federal governmental agencies.

On the day before Thanksgiving, John gets a call from Grover Norquist, who John had written a book with.  Mark Meadows, the Chief of Staff, asked Grover for ideas for projects in the Department of Justice that can be finished before the Biden administration takes power on January 20th. John suggests the active shooter data study and the NICS denial and data study. The suggestions are sent up the chain of command. Three projects are approved for completion. John’s suggestions are two of them. The AG, Bill Barr, orders the FBI to stop mucking around and send the data to the BJS.

The day after Barr requested it, Politico ran an article questioning why John was working in the Department of Justice.

On the Monday after Thanksgiving, all the Democrats on the Senate Judiciary Committee wrote a letter to AG Bill Barr asking him how he could ever hire a person such as John Lott. Barr responded by having a picture taken with John Lott.

The FBI dithers and delays. After a couple of weeks, the BJS receives the data, but something is wrong with it. It does not make any sense. The BJS complains, and the FBI apologizes, saying they do not understand what went wrong.  There are more delays, and then the FBI sends another batch of data, which still doesn’t make any sense. This sequence happens a couple more times. The last time the FBI sent data that did not make sense was on January 19, 2021. Then the Biden administration takes power.

The Biden administration is not interested in having the FBI send data to the Bureau of Justice Statistics.  Eventually, the BJS issues a report that includes a section about errors in the NICS system. The Biden administration pulls that section from the report before the report is published.

It is clear the FBI does not want anyone outside the FBI to analyze the NICS data, or to have access to the data showing the statistics of errors in the NICS data. The reason is likely that such an analysis would show the NICS system to be fundamentally flawed. It is likely that the flaws are such that Black people and Hispanics are denied approvals with false positives at much higher rates than everyone else.

John Lott has not been asked to take a position with the new Trump administration. It is early, and many thousands of appointments remain to be filled.

John believes the big problem is that virtually all the data people at the FBI have the same political views. It is difficult to fire all of them because they retain significant, useful, institutional knowledge.

About Dean Weingarten:

Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.