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It never fails. Every time we have another one of these mass shootings in the United States, someone in the corporate media is going to book this guy to carry water for the NRA and their desire to just turn us into the wild west and eliminate all gun safety laws. Gun advocate John Lott found himself getting some push back on his views from CNN's Soledad O'Brien this Monday morning though, unlike some of his interviews when he's in friendlier territory, like Fox:

CNN Anchor Destroys Gun Advocate’s Call To Abolish Gun Safety Laws: Victims’ Families ‘Would Be Stunned’:

The debate on gun control has been re-inflamed by the massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, CT on Friday. President Obama has signaled that he may consider new legislation to prevent more attacks. Most gun rights advocates, however, have either stayed silent or insisted that the teachers at the school should have been armed. Gun rights advocate John Lott, the leading academic behind the claim that more guns result in less violence, appeared on CNN’s Starting Point with Soledad O’Brien to advance his pet theory.

O’Brien attacked Lott for his claim that Friday’s shooting means we should do away with all restrictions on guns. Lott argued that bans on guns in certain areas attract criminals to those areas: [...]

Lott’s claim that more guns result in less violence is popular with gun control advocates, but it’s simply not true. Lott’s research methods have been frequently called into question, and other experts have dismissed his work as “junk science.” As the Washington Post points out, concealed weapon bans have not increased the crime rate, as pro-gun advocates claimed, and there is no solid evidence that right-to-carry laws reduce violence.

Media Matters has more on Lott here: Who Is Gun Advocate John Lott?:

Gun researcher John Lott has made numerous media appearances in the wake of the mass shooting in Newtown, Conn. to argue against the enactment of gun violence prevention measures. While Lott uses his media platform to push a multitude of statistics -- often from his own research -- he has been thoroughly discredited as a serious academic researcher. Read on...

Transcript via CNN below the fold.

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Lou Dobbs continues to prove that his move from CNN to Fox Business Channel was not good for him or for anyone still watching him if they would like to be presented with some semblance of the truth instead of perpetual fearmongering. In the wake of the Aurora massacre, one of the topics on this Friday's show was gun control, whether it be the possibility of new gun control laws being passed in America, or one of the right's favorite conspiracy theories, which is that the U.N. Arms Trade Treaty is going to take away everyone's guns.

And who better to bring in to weigh in on the topic, than discredited gun "researcher" John Lott. Media Matters has a long list of posts on Lott which you can read here. And Digby wrote about this nut back in 2006 here: Resurrection.

As Dobbs reported on the show, the U.N. failed to meet the deadline which was this Friday due to 51 Senators refusing to vote for it: Global arms treaty hits resistance as deadline ticks down:

Negotiators at the United Nations worked to complete a treaty to regulate the global arms trade by a Friday night deadline but faced resistance from some nations, including Iran, Syria and North Korea, and a request for more time from the United States.

The treaty aims to halt the cross-border flow of weapons and ammunition that has fueled violent conflicts around the world.

But some countries made clear their unhappiness with the restrictions in the treaty, which requires approval from all 193 United Nations members. And the Obama administration said it needed to study the text, which has gone through a series of revisions in a four-week negotiating process.

Complicating the politics of the negotiation, 51 U.S. senators have joined gun rights advocates in opposing the treaty, which they fear would infringe 2nd Amendment rights to bear arms.

The senators, in letters to President Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, expressed "grave concern" that the treaty could affect Americans’ ability to buy arms. Arms-control advocates contend that the worry is groundless. [...]

[Updated 5:24 p.m. Friday July 27: U.N. members ultimately failed to reach agreement by the Friday deadline. The conference chairman, Ambassador Roberto Garcia Moritan, said that despite the stalemate,“we certainly are going to have a treaty in 2012,” the Associated Press reported.]

Think Progress has more debunking their U.N. conspiracy theory here: The Right-Wing’s Favorite New Conspiracy: The U.N. Is After Your Guns:

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