Let's assume Lott's figure is in the ball park just for argument sake.
No. Why should we do that when we know it's an imaginary number.
Your assertion that the U.S. may be the most lawless country in the world is ludicrous.
That's not my assertion, it's Lott's. His results imply that many hundreds of thousands of murders should have been occurring when a private gun was not available for protection. Yet guns are rarely carried, less than a third of adult Americans personally own guns, and only 27,000 homicides occurred in 1992. He assumes that there were 2.5 million attempted crimes that were thwarted by gun ownership. If that's true, and without those guns those crimes would have occurred, it would make the United States the most lawless country in the world. Do the math yourself. Assume for a moment that gun ownership is banned. Add 2.5 million to the crime statistics. That would just about triple the crime rate in the US.
Secondly, my neighbor travels to South America regularly and used to live in Argentina.
Do you know what "anecdotal" means? I lived in Sao Paolo when my wife was doing a math fellowship at a university there. The crime statistics in Brasil are about 30% higher than the US. Not double, not triple.
So as far as i'm concerned I'd believe him before believing your generalization.
What generalization? I cited a list of researchers and their studies that have refuted Lott. Are you going to believe your neighbor over published studies, too?