Townhall covers our research: Here’s the Only Thing That’s ‘Rare’ About CCW Holders Stopping Active Shooters

Matt Vespa discusses our new research on errors in the FBI Active Shooting reports.

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Just add this to the list of systemic deficiencies plaguing the Federal Bureau of Investigation. Since 2016, there’s been what seems to be a never-ending list of scandals and corruption engulfing the J. Edgar Hoover Building. We’ve suffered through their Russian collusion circus. We saw federal agents run interference on any story about Hunter Biden’s laptop. They raided the home of Donald Trump at Mar-a-Lago, and they seem to have a disturbing track record regarding mass shooters—they always seem to know who these guys are beforehand. Also, they initially said that the 2017 GOP congressional baseball team shooting, which almost killed then-Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-LA), was not politically motivated. The perpetrator was a devoted leftist and Bernie Sanders supporter who scoped out the practice location in Alexandria, Virginia, for days and had a hit list of GOP targets. 

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Is this the biggest scandal to hit the FBI? No, but it has a considerable impact because it is a Second Amendment issue. The media has peddled narratives about how private citizens can’t stop active shooter situations, partially based on the FBI’s inaccurate data sets. The FBI is grossly undercounting or simply miscataloguing incidents in which citizens prevent would-be mass shooters. According to the Hoover boys, only four percent of active shooter situations are stopped by ordinary citizens when the actual number is closer to 35 percent. In 2021, the figure was around 50 percent. John Lott’s Crime Prevention Research Center crunched the exact figures in their new study, which also added that the FBI misclassified shooting incidents when a civilian stopped the attacker because the police later arrested the suspect (via CPRC): . . . [A long quote from our report.]

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A few years ago, I would have been shocked to think that the FBI, our preeminent law enforcement and domestic intelligence agency, could fudge the numbers this poorly, but since Trump—their malfeasance knows no bounds. They’ve interfered in three elections now, one of which—2024—hasn’t even begun, but you don’t think Trump will use the Mar-a-Lago raid in some fashion to build the foundation for his pending candidacy announcement? The bureau has acted more like the political police force of the Democratic Party, so, sadly, I cannot simply pass this off as a flawed data formula.

Matt Vespa, “Here’s the Only Thing That’s ‘Rare’ About CCW Holders Stopping Mass Shooters,” Townhall, October 19, 2022.