I normally stay out of politics on the site, but I am going to make an exception today, for John Lott. He is, of course, one of the preeminent academic researchers involved in studying crime and firearms issues, and is of particular note because he came into the subject from a neutral position and allowed facts and rigorous research to determine his position. That research led to his rather well-known book, More Guns, Less Crime.

Unfortunately, the majority of research in this field today is sponsored by groups with rather blatant preexisting bias, like the groups funded by Bloomberg among others. What Lott is doing right now is setting up an independent Crime Prevention Research Center to continue the honest study of crime and firearms issues and let the data speak for itself. This requires funding to pay for salaries of researchers and research assistants, and the many other assorted expenses of running such an institution. Lott has a funding project running on IndieGoGo which has not received much attention, but is well worth your time to take a look at.

Personally, I was quite humbled to discover that one of our readers took up the offer from New York Times best-selling thriller-writer Brad Thor, and donated no less than $10,000 to the CPRC in exchange for the opportunity to name a character in Thor’s upcoming novel – and he chose to put me in it! I am excited to see how I look in an action thriller novel, but that will have to wait until the book is released next summer. In the meantime, there are a bunch of other great thank-you tokens available if you donate to help out the CPRC, including signed books by Lott, Thor, and Ted Nugent, and backstage passes to a Nugent concert.

If you are willing to take a moment, please check out the CPRC’s funding campaign, and help out if you can. Peer-reviewed, authoritative science is something that can help our fight for gun rights by providing the tools we need to build effective activism.

Thanks!