Correcting the FBI's
Faulty "Active-Shooter" Data

Much of the mainstream media loves to report that what the FBI classifies as "active-shooter incidents" are seldom stopped by armed citizens. To do so, they quote the FBI's numbers to argue that only about 4% of such attacks were stopped by armed citizens during the 2014 to 2023 time period.

If that number were true, it would still be quite notable that 4% (14 incidents) were stopped by armed citizens; however, according to new research by John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC), during that same time period the FBI undercounted the number of instances in which armed citizens thwarted such attacks by an order of more than 10.

For some background, the FBI defines active-shooter incidents as those in which an individual actively kills or attempts to kill people in a populated, public area. Unlike some other databases, it does not include those it deems related to other criminal activity, such as a robbery or fighting over drug turf.

The FBI reported that armed citizens stopped 14 of the 350 active shooter incidents it identified for the period 2014 to 2023. But the new analysis by CPRC identified a total of 515 active shooter incidents, with armed citizens stopping 180 of them. .....