Government Continues to Downplay, Distort Data on Defensive Gun Use

[useapen]

In 2021, John R. Lott, Jr., the president of the Crime Prevention Research
Center (CPRC) released a paper on the “serious errors” he found in Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reports purporting to track “active shooter
incidents” (ASIs). The FBI’s annual or biannual reports – which aim “to
provide federal, state and local law enforcement with data so they can
better understand how to prevent, prepare for, respond to, and recover
from these incidents” – contained, according to Dr. Lott, critical errors.
In one instance, the failure to include “many major missed cases” meant
that once those cases were accounted for, what the FBI had presented as a
drastic increase in ASIs between 2000 and 2013 was actually a “slight,
statistically insignificant upward trend over the 38 years from 1977
through 2014,” and one that was, moreover, attributable to high numbers in
a single year (2012).

Another error highlighted in the 2021 paper was the FBI’s repeated
exclusion of cases where armed citizens intervened in attacks, with the
corrected data establishing a significantly more favorable depiction of
defensive gun uses. This included Dr. Lott identifying at least six
missing cases in 2018-19 in which a concealed handgun permit-holder
stopped the attacker. The FBI had reported that, between 2014 and 2019,
citizens with permitted concealed handguns stopped an attack in nine out
of 145 cases (6.2%); as corrected, the figure more than doubled to over 15
percent. (Further research was required to identify additional concealed
carry cases missed by the FBI prior to 2014.)

Interestingly, the Washington Post’s fact-checker, Glenn Kessler,
contacted the FBI for comments regarding the issues Lott raised. “The FBI
brushed aside repeated efforts by The Fact Checker to discuss its reports
and the questions raised by Lott. ‘We have no additional information to
provide other than what is provided within the active shooter reports on
our website,’ the agency said in an emailed statement.”

A new article by Dr. Lott maintains that the FBI persists in its
unfortunate practice of massively underreporting incidents in which armed
civilians have thwarted active shootings. “While the FBI claims that just
4.6 percent of active shootings were stopped by law-abiding citizens
carrying guns, the percentage that [the CPRC] found was 35.7 percent. I am
more confident that we have identified a higher share of recent cases, and
our figure for 2022 was even higher – 41.3 percent.”

The corrected statistics are even more compelling once adjusted for just
the locations where armed individuals are permitted to carry. Although the
FBI dataset does not break down cases between those occurring in “gun-
free” zones and others, the CPRC found that in “places where law-abiding
citizens are allowed to carry firearms, the percentage of active shootings
that were stopped is 51 percent. For 2022, that figure is a remarkable
63.5 percent” – a stunningly persuasive endorsement on the benefits of
lawful carry. (The specific data used by the CPRC is available at its
website, here.)

Another study lends support to the CPRC’s findings, being the results of a
national survey analyzing firearm ownership and use released last year by
William English (McDonough School of Business, Georgetown University).
Admittedly, this doesn’t use the FBI’s metric of “active shooter incident”
(which applies only to public places and excludes shootings from gang or
drug violence), but nonetheless offers valuable insight into how often
firearms are used in defense of self and others.

The study found that more than 81.4 million Americans aged 18 and over own
firearms, with approximately 31.1% (25.3 million) reporting having used a
gun to defend themselves or their property, often on more than one
occasion. Extrapolating the figures, these “gun owners have been involved
in … approximately 50 million defensive incidents. Assuming that defensive
uses of firearms are distributed roughly equally across years, this
suggests at least 1.67 million defensive uses of firearms per year in
which firearms owners have defended themselves or their property through
the discharge, display, or mention of a firearm (excluding military
service, police work, or work as a security guard).” Footnote 9 clarifies
that “this estimate is inherently conservative;” if, for instance, those
who do not personally own firearms are included in the estimate, it “could
be substantially higher – perhaps as high as 2.8 million per year.”

Lott’s article concedes that data collection and classification mistakes
may happen, although this doesn’t explain why the problems with the FBI’s
reporting continue even after updated, corrected information is made
available. The FBI’s “data on active shootings is missing so many
defensive gun uses that it’s hard to believe it isn’t intentional.”

It is, of course, irresponsible to manipulate data to further a preferred
political narrative, and it is much more egregiously so if the entity
involved is a publicly funded and supposedly nonpartisan government agency
whose information is relied on by media, courts, law enforcement, and
legislators. President Joe Biden – who has himself been so frequently and
consistently caught out making false claims about guns that even CNN has
called him on it – is already campaigning on a sweeping new gun control
platform. The success of his anti-Second Amendment agenda rests on
undermining facts and evidence, and convincing Americans that defensive
gun use is a fantasy.

https://www.nraila.org/articles/20230911/government-continues-to-downplay-
distort-data-on-defensive-gun-use

[Al Feldhauser]

On 9/15/2023 7:29 PM, useapen wrote:
> In 2021, John R. Lott, Jr., the president of the Crime Prevention Research
> Center (CPRC) released a paper on the “serious errors” he found in Federal
> Bureau of Investigation (FBI) reports

Lott couldn't find his own ass with both hands and a flashlight.