John Lott, a gun policy researcher that freqeuntly appears on conservative media outlets, has taken to his website to respond to a recent post of mine pointing out two misleading claims he made about the Obama Administration. Lott now accuses me of misquoting what he wrote in a March 18 Big Government post. In fact, I quoted Lott accurately, but someone subsequently altered his Big Government post, making it appear that I was wrong.

On March 22, I wrote [emphasis added]:

Lott also criticized Obama for a request made by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives (ATF) citing an out-of-date article, saying that the Obama administration has “also imposed much more extensive reporting requirements on sales of long guns.”

In fact, the Obama administration has not imposed the regulation in question. The proposed regulation by the ATF has been repeatedly delayed by the Obama administration, which most recently rejected the ATF's request to enact the proposal as an emergency regulation. The administration will decide on approval in April, if no further delays occur. If enacted the proposal would require gun shops along the Mexican border to report multiple sales of certain classes of rifles, such as AK-47s or AR-15s, made within a five-day period.

Lott responds [emphasis in original]:

In fact, my quote is “They have also tried imposing much more extensive reporting requirements on sales of long guns.” Besides, even if the point had been honestly misread, if someone has tried to check the link, the point would have been clear. Nice try Media Matters.

Sure enough, Lott's March 18 Big Government piece now reads, “They have also tried imposing much more extensive reporting requirements on sales of long guns.” That's what it says today, anyway. But that's not what it said when the article was published. Here's a screen shot showing how the article appeared on March 22 when I wrote the criticism:

Click Image for Full Size Version in a New Window

And here is the modified version that appears today:

Click Image for Full Size Version in a New Window

Lott titled his Big Government post, “The Surreal Debate Over Obama's Gun Control Policies” (assuming the title doesn't mysteriously change too). In reality, the surreal thing is that the original quote still appears in a March 18 post on Lott's own website, still on the front page, not far below the post where he accuses me of misquoting him.

Click Image for Full Size Version in a New Window

Did John Lott change his quote on Big Government and then accuse me of misquoting him? Is someone else to blame?

Maybe Mary Rosh did it.