The FBI and the Centers for Disease Control have been accused of infringing on their data handling, leading to a lack of accurate information on the number of people using guns to stop crime. The CDC, for instance, removed its estimates of defensive gun uses from its website at the request of gun control organizations, which had been used to stop gun control legislation. The FBI’s data handling has also been affected by political pressure, with the FBI reporting that armed citizens stopped only 14 out of 302 active shooter incidents identified between 2014-2022. This rate is almost eight times higher than the correct rate, and if the discussion is limited to places where permit holders were allowed to carry, the rate is eleven times higher.
The FBI defines active shooter incidents as those in which an individual actively kills or attempts to kill people in a populated, public area. However, it does not include shootings related to other criminal activity, such as robbery or fighting over drug turf. The Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) found that out of 440 active shooter incidents from 2014 to 2022, an armed citizen stopped 157, and the FBI had misidentified five cases, usually because the person who stopped the attack was incorrectly identified as a security guard.
The CPRC found that the FBI claims that just 4.6% of active shootings were stopped by law-abiding citizens carrying guns, but the percentage that they found was 35.7%. They are more confident that they have identified a higher share of recent cases, and their figure for 2022 was even higher – 41.3%.
The FBI doesn’t differentiate between law-abiding citizens stopping attacks where guns are banned and where they are allowed, but it can’t expect law-abiding citizens to stop attacks where it is illegal to carry guns. In places where law-abiding citizens are allowed to carry firearms, the percentage of active shootings that were stopped is 51%, and for 2022, that figure is a remarkable 63.5%. To follow the FBI’s definition, the CPRC excluded 27 cases because a law-abiding person with a gun stopped the attacker before he was able to get off a shot.
A bureau official acknowledged that the FBI did not come across this incident during its research in 2015, but it does meet the FBI’s active-shooter definition. However, the FBI database never added the incident. When the Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler reached out to the FBI for comments on their earlier work up through 2021, they emailed that they had no additional information to provide other than what is provided within the active shooter reports on their website.
The FBI data on active shootings is missing so many defensive gun uses that it’s hard to believe it isn’t intentional. Errors can happen, but the failure to fix past reports shows a troubling disregard for the truth. The reality is that armed, law-abiding citizens are unsung guardian angels in the fight against gun violence.
LINK TO CORRECTION OF FBI DATA
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