Byzantium's Shores: chronicling the misadventures of an overalls-clad hippie

When I was a more active Usenet participant, I noticed a curious phenomenon beginning roughly two years or so ago: whenever the subject of gun control would come up, in just about any newsgroup, some anti-gun control person would post a message that simply read, "Just read John Lott's book", as if the mere citation of this book were sufficient to quash all debate. Somehow More Guns, Less Crime had become an authoritative source on the level of, say, A Critique of Pure Reason or Copernicus or some similar canonical tome. So, it's interesting to watch as doubt upon doubt about Lott's methodology and post-publication conduct get piled on in recent weeks. CalPundit has been tracking this pretty well.