FBI fudges numbers on “mass shootings” report
The New York Post reports on the FBI latest report on gun violence and mass shootings. Apparently, they changed the definition of mass shootings to include incidents in which no one died, as opposed to their former metrics which required at least four deaths to qualify;
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.
[…]
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.
According to John Lott, the author of “More Guns, Less Crime”, who wrote the Post’s article, the report skewed the numbers by starting in 2000, a year with a low number of mass shootings. The report left out incidents in the early years to show a huge increase by the time of the study’s end in 2013 from 1 incident in 2000 to 17 in 2013. I don’t suppose that the FBI wrote this report for political reasons. But I’m sure we’ll hear about the report in the months after the mid-term elections.
Category: Gun Grabbing Fascists
Yeah, this is similar to the bullshit served up regarding alien deportations. We’re told that the current regime has deported more aliens than were deported under the Bush presidency. And that’s true–except that the current regime omits the fact that the definition of what constitutes a deportation changed. I really loathe the Golfer in Mom Jeans and his toadies.
“I don’t suppose that the FBI wrote this report for political reasons.”
I just don’t know Jonn but the “new and improved” FBI metrics sure go hand in hand with the Obama and gun grabbing left’s arguments of “See, more guns, more crimes and mass killings. We’ve got to get those guns out of people’s hands. We even have the FBI saying so. Just look at their statistics.”
While I would like the believe the FBI was not politically motivated to do this, James Comey is an Obama appointee.
So, the Feebs have become nothing more than just another propaganda arm of the DNC? My only question is, what took so long? President Mom Jeans has been around for 6 years.
Okay, I’ll ask. Is that one of your guns in the picture at the top of the thread, Jonn?
Nope. I just like the picture.
This report reminds me of a scientific meeting I attended, where a couple of researchers were presenting results from a clinical trial. The trial was comparing the results obtained from drug treatment and from surgery. The patients were randomized at the beginning of the trial.
These were heart patients. Heart patients who fare poorly get surgery. However, because they had been previously randomized, there were some patients designated for drug treatment that subsequently got surgery, but their results were reported for the drug group due to the way they were randomized.
One person asked just enough questions to verify that the outcome for the “drug only” group included outcomes for people who had actually received surgery. After that, there was dead silence in the room.
Scientists just do not talk to people who are selling BS.
The problem is that people who serve up this kind of nonsense in a public forum will get away with it, unless somebody else speaks up and explains why it is nonsense.
It’s nice that the New York Times noticed and reported. People who have to use these statistics for planning should also comment on it, voluminously, so that a researcher in 10 years will find out that this report* has problems.
It was the NY Post not the Times who printed the editorial questioning the efficacy of the report. The NYT did no such thing, and I’d expect that the FBI report is front an center on there next gun grab editorial.
Should I ever decide to run for office (God forbid!), this will be part of my campaign platform:
Everyone who wants to vote will have to qualify on firearms, handguns and long guns both.
They will be required to show not only an acceptable acuity with target practice, but also show that they passed a weapons safety course.
They will be required to demonstrate that they not only understand the importance of defending themselves, but also the importance of defending the US Constitution and its amendments.
They will also have to take the gun wearer’s oath (see Robert Heinlein “Red Planet” for this reference).
And that’s just if they want to vote in any election, anywhere.
And the FBI can go pound sand. You can tell who has them by the short hairs just from that report.
Good thing they don’t use these kind of tricks with data regarding important matters like climate change, huh.
For years now the FBI has posted their data, and it has shown a steady decline in gun violence, and violent crime in general.
I guess when you politicize the Department of Justice you have things like this… a “redifining” of incidents in order to make your agenda have credibility.
So let’s call “active shooter incidents”(which) just means there is someone with a gun who has shot it or has threatened to as “mass shootings”. How they actually made that leap intellectually, other than for blatant political reasons is beyond me. It just makes no sense whatsoever, except to bolster the “gun violence” meme.
I’m getting the rather uneasy feeling that there is going to be a big push for more egregious forms of gun control, after the mid-terms. Call me paranoid, but that’s what it looks like.
Joe Bite-Me said that the agenda for gun control is alive and well in the Øbama Regime. They’re just waiting for the moment to start in on it.
Yep. They haven’t gone anywhere. Is it a coincidence that Attorney General Holder has made public statements that they (the anti-gunners) need to change the thinking on guns? He’s one of the biggest anti-gun types around and I think that this latest change in the metrics is purely political and at the behest of the AG and Obumbles.