Discredited gun researcher John Lott misled about a controversial NRA-backed law that is being used to challenge Pennsylvania gun ordinances, the same day he hoped to testify as an expert witness in a related lawsuit.

In 2014, Republican Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett signed legislation that expanded the scope of a longstanding Pennsylvania state preemption law that limits the ability of local governments to pass gun ordinances that go beyond state gun laws. The new law, Act 192, expands how the preemption law can be enforced with an unusual provision that gives gun rights groups a special status to sue the local municipalities who allegedly violate the state preemption law.

The NRA has called the law “a much-needed protection for gun owners in the Keystone State” and has already moved to sue several Pennsylvania cities over local gun laws. Philadelphia Magazine called the law “astonishing” and “appalling” because the special “standing” to sue, carved out for gun rights groups under the law, means "[t]he NRA can sue -- and it can win without having to show that anybody actually had their rights violated." The magazine also noted that the law would allow the NRA to capture Pennsylvanians' tax dollars in the form of attorney's fees granted to the victor of a lawsuit under the law. Prior to the enactment of Act 192, the NRA had attempted to sue a Pennsylvania municipality, but had its lawsuit dismissed for lack of standing.

Now, a new lawsuit brought under the law is challenging the city of Harrisburg, Pennsylvania for its gun ordinances. A preliminary injunction hearing for the lawsuit was held on February 6.

In a February 6 opinion piece for The Patriot-News, a Harrisburg newspaper, Lott misled in two ways about the scope of Act 192 in order to normalize the law's unusually broad standing to sue. Lott's piece was appended with the note that he is “serving as an expert witness in Friday's case against Harrisburg.”

Lott only mentioned that Act 192 allows Pennsylvania citizens to sue local municipalities, making no mention of the unusual and controversial aspect of the law that also allows non-local gun groups -- like the previously unsuccessful NRA -- to sue. Indeed, the lawsuit against Harrisburg where Lott is an expert witness was brought by U.S. Law Shield, a Texas-based company that sells gun owners plans that cover criminal, civil, and other expenses should they shoot somebody.

Lott also offered a misleading comparison between the rights granted under Act 192 and between citizen suits that allow individuals to personally sue entities that violate environmental laws:

Last year, the state legislature took a leaf out of the Environmental Protection Agency's enforcement book. Just as individuals can sue companies that illegally pollute waterways, Pennsylvanians can now sue local governments for disobeying state laws. Under Act 192, citizens can challenge a local gun law even if they are not personally affected by it.

The misleading implication from Lott is that Act 192 allows citizens to sue -- even if they are “not personally affected” by a local gun ordinance -- in a similar vein to environmental citizen suits. In fact, according to Supreme Court precedent, these types of citizen suits can only be brought by litigants who are “personally affected” by the violation of an environmental law, and can claim an “injury in fact.”

Lott, who is best known for his now-debunked “more guns, less crime” hypothesis, frequently misleads on the issue of gun violence and firearm policies in order to push a pro-gun agenda. In his Patriot-News opinion piece, Lott also pushed several familiar falsehoods about gun violence. Lott wrote that, “Concealed handgun laws reduce violent crime.” According to recent research the opposite is true, and Lott's research that purported to establish a relationship between permissive gun-carrying laws and reductions in crime has been discredited by academic research. Lott also wrote that "[g]un-free zones" attract crime with the claim that "[s]ince at least 1950, all but two of America's mass public shootings have taken place where it is illegal to possess a firearm." In fact, 18 of 33 public mass shootings since January 2009 occurred where it is legal to carry a concealed gun.