Heh. I haven't been dealing much with the controversy surrounding John Lott (although I'm not overly impressed by his work), but kudos to Atrios for discovering both that the man employed a sock puppet on Usenet named "Mary Rosh" and (through a commenter named "A.C".) that he had employed this pseudonym to support his conclusions in gun debates.

Let's face facts. If Lott's conclusions didn't support the wingnuts, this would be the end of him; nobody could take him seriously even if his writing wasn't full of holes. As it is, at least there'll be a good (and highly amusing) counter when dealing with yet another proselytizing NRA type blathering on about Lott's findings.

Oh, and as someone who actually makes a point of acknowledging that he uses a pseudonym and doesn't try to cheat his way out of the repercussions of that choice by inventing a legitimate-sounding name..... haw haw.