February 20, 2019

Bogus Gun Research

Last week Rep. Nancy Pelosi warned President Donald Trump that if he declared an “emergency” to build a wall, “think what a president with different values can present… Why don’t you declare (the epidemic of gun violence in America) an emergency, Mr. President? I wish you would… A Democratic president can declare emergencies as well.”

Last week Rep. Nancy Pelosi warned President Donald Trump that if he declared an “emergency” to build a wall, “think what a president with different values can present… Why don’t you declare (the epidemic of gun violence in America) an emergency, Mr. President? I wish you would… A Democratic president can declare emergencies as well.”

Her fellow Democrats Sen. Kamala Harris and Sen. Elizabeth Warren quickly agreed.

Warren tweeted: “Gun violence is an emergency. Climate change is an emergency…”

Yikes.

Not every problem in America should be declared an emergency — or used by a president to justify acting without Congress.

But why are guns on the Democrats’ “emergency” list anyway?

One reason is sloppy reporting by lazy media.

Last year, they claimed that there were school shootings at “hundreds of schools.” It was “an almost daily occurrence” in the U.S., some said.

This was nonsense. NPR reporters looked into the 235 shootings reported by the U.S. Dept of Education and were only able to confirm 11 of them.

It turned out that schools were added to the list merely because someone at a school heard there may have been a shooting. Good for NPR for checking out the Education Department’s claim.

Economist John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center (and father of one of my producers) spends much of his time researching gun use and correcting shoddy studies.

A few years ago, much of the media claimed that the U.S. has “the most mass shootings of any country in the world.” President Barack Obama added it’s “a pattern now that has no parallel anywhere else.”

CNN and The L.A. Times wrote about “Why the U.S. Has the Most Mass Shootings.” (“The United States has more guns.”)

But the U.S. doesn’t have the most mass shootings, says Lott. It’s a myth created by University of Alabama associate professor Adam Lankford, a myth repeated by anti-gun media in hundreds of news stories.

“Lankford claimed that since 1966 there were 90 mass public shooters in the United States, more than any other country,” says Lott. “Lankford claimed ‘complete data’ were available from 171 countries.”

But how could that be? Many governments don’t collect such data and even fewer have information from before the days of the internet.

A shooting in say, India, would likely be reported only in local newspapers, in a local dialect. How would Lankford ever find out about it? How did he collect his information? What languages did he search in?

He won’t say.

“That’s academic malpractice,” says Lott in my video about the controversy.

I’m not surprised that Lankford didn’t reply to Lott’s emails. Lott is known as pro-gun. (He wrote the book “More Guns, Less Crime.”) But Lankford also won’t explain his data to me, The Washington Post or even his fellow gun control advocates.

When Lott’s research center checked the data, using Lankford’s own definition of a mass shooting, “four or more people killed,” the center found 3,000 shootings around the world. Lankford claimed there were only 202.

Lankford said he excludes “sponsored terrorism” but does not define what he means by that. To be safe, Lott removed terrorism cases from his data. He still found 709 shootings — more than triple the number Lankford reported.

It turns out that not only did the U.S. not have the most frequent mass shootings, it was number 62 on the list, lower than places like Norway, Finland and Switzerland.

There was also no relationship between the rate of gun ownership in different countries and the rate of mass shootings.

If journalists had just demanded Lankford explain his study methods before touting his results, his “more mass shootings” myth would never have spread.

So if Nancy Pelosi, Kamala Harris and Elizabeth Warren ever follow through on their threat to declare gun violence a “national emergency,” be sure to check their math.

Or just remember the wisdom of the Second Amendment.

Government’s desire to control us — and to lie to make its case — is the real emergency.

COPYRIGHT 2019 BY JFS PRODUCTIONS INC.

Who We Are

The Patriot Post is a highly acclaimed weekday digest of news analysis, policy and opinion written from the heartland — as opposed to the MSM’s ubiquitous Beltway echo chambers — for grassroots leaders nationwide. More

What We Offer

On the Web

We provide solid conservative perspective on the most important issues, including analysis, opinion columns, headline summaries, memes, cartoons and much more.

Via Email

Choose our full-length Digest or our quick-reading Snapshot for a summary of important news. We also offer Cartoons & Memes on Monday and Alexander’s column on Wednesday.

Our Mission

The Patriot Post is steadfast in our mission to extend the endowment of Liberty to the next generation by advocating for individual rights and responsibilities, supporting the restoration of constitutional limits on government and the judiciary, and promoting free enterprise, national defense and traditional American values. We are a rock-solid conservative touchstone for the expanding ranks of grassroots Americans Patriots from all walks of life. Our mission and operation budgets are not financed by any political or special interest groups, and to protect our editorial integrity, we accept no advertising. We are sustained solely by you. Please support The Patriot Fund today!


The Patriot Post and Patriot Foundation Trust, in keeping with our Military Mission of Service to our uniformed service members and veterans, are proud to support and promote the National Medal of Honor Heritage Center, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, both the Honoring the Sacrifice and Warrior Freedom Service Dogs aiding wounded veterans, the National Veterans Entrepreneurship Program, the Folds of Honor outreach, and Officer Christian Fellowship, the Air University Foundation, and Naval War College Foundation, and the Naval Aviation Museum Foundation. "Greater love has no one than this, to lay down one's life for his friends." (John 15:13)

★ PUBLIUS ★

“Our cause is noble; it is the cause of mankind!” —George Washington

Please join us in prayer for our nation — that righteous leaders would rise and prevail and we would be united as Americans. Pray also for the protection of our Military Patriots, Veterans, First Responders, and their families. Please lift up your Patriot team and our mission to support and defend our Republic's Founding Principle of Liberty, that the fires of freedom would be ignited in the hearts and minds of our countrymen.

The Patriot Post is protected speech, as enumerated in the First Amendment and enforced by the Second Amendment of the Constitution of the United States of America, in accordance with the endowed and unalienable Rights of All Mankind.

Copyright © 2024 The Patriot Post. All Rights Reserved.

The Patriot Post does not support Internet Explorer. We recommend installing the latest version of Microsoft Edge, Mozilla Firefox, or Google Chrome.