John Lott on Mass shootings

[GeneCC]

It’s disheartening to see the FBI used to promote a political agenda, but that’s what we got with the bureau’s release last month of a study claiming to show a sharp rise in mass shootings, a la Newtown, Conn.

The FBI counted 160 “mass” or “active” shootings in public places from 2000 to 2013. Worse, it said these attacks rose from just one in 2000 to 17 in 2013. Media outlets worldwide gave the “news” extensive coverage.

While the FBI study discusses “mass shootings or killings,” its graphs were filled with cases that had nothing to do with mass killings. Of the 160 cases it counted, 32 involved a gun being fired without anyone being killed. Another 35 cases involved a single murder.
Three-quarters of the missing cases came in the first half of the study’s time period, thus again biasing the results toward finding a larger increase over time.

It’s hard to see how the FBI can count these incidents, which make up 42 percent of its 160 cases, as “mass killings.” They plainly don’t fit the FBI’s old definition, which required four or more murders, nor even its new one of at least three murders.

And these non-mass shootings, with zero or one person killed, drive much of the purported increase in the number of attacks. If you consider cases where no one or only one person was killed, 50 came in the last seven years of the period the FBI examined and only 17 during the first seven years.

For example, in 2010, the FBI reports that there were 29 of these active shooter cases, but just nine involved more than a single fatality.

The FBI study also ignored 20 out of what should have been a total of 113 cases where at least two people were killed.

For example, it missed a 2001 shooting at a Chicago bar that left two dead and 21 wounded, as well as a 2004 Columbus, Ohio, attack at a concert that left four dead.

Three-quarters of the missing cases came in the first half of the study’s time period, thus again biasing the results toward finding a larger increase over time.

Another trick was the choice of 2000 as the starting date. Everybody who has studied these attacks knows that 2000 and 2001 were unusually quiet years, with few mass shootings.

Thus, by starting with those years and padding the cases in later years with non-mass shooting attacks, the study’s authors knew perfectly well they would get the result they wanted.

The picture looks quite different if you use good data and a longer time period. Back in 2000, Bill Landes of the University of Chicago and I gathered data on mass public shootings from 1977 to 1999; I’ve now updated the database.

Our criteria were similar to what the FBI said it would follow: non-gang attacks in public places.

Shootings that were also part of some other crime, such as a robbery, were also excluded. But we counted cases where at least two people had been murdered in these public shootings.

Overall, there has been a slight increase in deaths from mass public shootings over these 38 years, but even then the upward trend largely depends on the single year 2012, when there were 91 deaths.

http://nypost.com/2014/10/12/the-fbi...ass-shootings/

[GeneCC]

Looks like Mr. Obama's "Executive Memorandums" to "curb gun violence" are hard at work.

[GeneCC]

Conclusion:

Clearly,the FBI report contains significant errors.

The FBI is not studying all the mass public shootings that occurred over the period of time and also pads it with non-*mass shootings.

Correcting their errors and focusing on mass public shootings cuts the size of the claimed annual increase in deaths in half. Using data back to 1977, collected in previous research, virtually eliminates any increase in mass public shootings.

The FBI report appears to be politically driven.i

http://crimepreventionresearchcenter...gs-Report1.pdf

[JenniferG]

One of the other factors that isn't mentioned in all that data that I saw right away; all the larger increases started right about the time Obamao was sworn in. I think his presence on the national psyche has driven much of it. If I'm not mistaken it's not just everyone of us that feel the pressure that this man has created on our culture and society. I believe it has an affect on the public in general when a leader governs so much against the will of the people. This man has been a plague on our society and has tried to turn everything on it's head. How is it that there are so many sheep today, oh bags, I already know that answer. It's our education system or the lack thereof for the last twenty or so years.

The FBI may be purposely misinterpreting the results of those but what I see is a general public that feels the stress and strain of a government out of control and this is the reaction to it.

[bogey1]

The weather channel names EVERY storm now. Same agenda, to scare the sheep.

[press1280]

It's like the "CCW killers" list that LCAV put out not too long ago, where they included cases of self-defense, accidental shootings, and even when the CCW holder killed someone driving while intoxicated and no firearms involved whatsoever.

[Stooperzero]

The weather channel names EVERY storm now. Same agenda, to scare the sheep.

eventually every time it rains or the sun comes out it will get named.
Sensationalize everything.

[Bellerophon]

Interesting read. Thanks for the link. It looks like the data was eschewed to fit the intended purpose of the report.

[Pilot321]

One of the other factors that isn't mentioned in all that data that I saw right away; all the larger increases started right about the time Obamao was sworn in. I think his presence on the national psyche has driven much of it. If I'm not mistaken it's not just everyone of us that feel the pressure that this man has created on our culture and society. I believe it has an affect on the public in general when a leader governs so much against the will of the people. This man has been a plague on our society and has tried to turn everything on it's head. How is it that there are so many sheep today, oh bags, I already know that answer. It's our education system or the lack thereof for the last twenty or so years.

The FBI may be purposely misinterpreting the results of those but what I see is a general public that feels the stress and strain of a government out of control and this is the reaction to it.

For the past six years we have been in a national malaise. A sort of pale has been hanging over this country. One that I experienced during Carter, but much, much worse. A very pessimistic, self defeatist attitude of dissatisfaction, and lack of belief that things will get better. Much of it is economic, but also much of it is the constant drum beating by this Administration, and its colleagues in the media, and EDUCATION that the U.S. is NOT exceptional. That our country founded on liberty, and freedom, the first one in history is no better conceptually than Greece.

It sickens me.