German first, English translation following it.
Man muss nicht immer hilflos auf die Polizei warten – und eventuell zum Opfer werden. Nach einer Auswertung des Crime Prevention Research Center stoppten legal bewaffnete Bürger in den USA zwischen 2014 und 2025 insgesamt 260 bewaffnete Angriffe. Einschließlich der Interventionen vor dem ersten Schuss entspricht das rechnerisch 40 Prozent der dafür zusammengefassten Fälle. Die Erhebung widerspricht der amtlichen FBI-Statistik, die lediglich 3,9 Prozent behauptete.
Das von John Lott geleitete Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) ermittelte für die Vereinigten Staaten zwischen 2014 und 2025 insgesamt 615 sogenannte „Active-Shooter“-Vorfälle. Bei 225 davon hätten legal bewaffnete Zivilisten den Angriff gestoppt: 36,6 Prozent. Weitere 35 Fälle führt das Zentrum gesondert, weil der Angreifer bereits vor seinem ersten Schuss aufgehalten wurde. Rechnet man diese Interventionen hinzu, ergeben sich 260 erfolgreiche Eingriffe bei 650 erfassten Fällen – rechnerisch 40 Prozent. Diese erweiterte Quote ist unsere Berechnung auf Grundlage der CPRC-Angaben.
Gegenwehr kann Täter zur Aufgabe oder Flucht zwingen
Die dokumentierten Eingriffe erfolgten unter anderem in Geschäften, Gaststätten, an Arbeitsplätzen und im Umfeld von Wohnhäusern. Dabei handelten sowohl unbeteiligte Zeugen als auch unmittelbar angegriffene Opfer. Erfolgreicher Selbstschutz bedeutete nicht immer, den Täter zu töten: Die Fallsammlung enthält auch Angreifer, die nach Gegenwehr flüchteten, ihre Waffe ablegten oder bis zur Festnahme in Schach gehalten wurden. Entscheidend war, dass die bewaffneten Bürger eine fortdauernde Bedrohung unterbrechen konnten.
Ein Beispiel ist der Angriff auf eine Zahnarztpraxis in Colonial Heights, Tennessee, am 13. Februar 2019. Nach der dokumentierten Darstellung erschoss ein Mann seine dort arbeitende Ehefrau und richtete die Waffe anschließend auf weitere Personen. Ein Patient mit einer Erlaubnis zum verdeckten Tragen einer Schusswaffe schoss auf den Angreifer. In Syracuse, New York, erschoss am 31. August 2021 ein Hausverwalter mit einer legal besessenen Pistole einen Mann, der auf eine Menschenmenge gefeuert hatte. Der Staatsanwalt schrieb ihm die Rettung mehrerer Menschenleben zu.
Translation from German
One does not always have to wait helplessly for the police—and potentially become a victim. According to an analysis by the Crime Prevention Research Center, legally armed citizens in the United States stopped a total of 260 armed attacks between 2014 and 2025. Including interventions that occurred before the first shot was fired, this amounts to 40 percent of the cases analyzed. This finding contradicts official FBI statistics, which cited a figure of only 3.9 percent.
The Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC), led by John Lott, identified a total of 615 “active shooter” incidents in the United States between 2014 and 2025. In 225 of these cases, legally armed civilians stopped the attack—a rate of 36.6 percent. The center lists an additional 35 cases separately, as the attacker was stopped before firing a single shot. When these interventions are included, the total reaches 260 successful interventions out of 650 recorded cases—mathematically, 40 percent. This broader figure is our own calculation based on data provided by the CPRC.
Defensive action can force perpetrators to surrender or flee
The documented interventions took place in various locations, including shops, restaurants, workplaces, and residential areas. Those who took action included both uninvolved bystanders and individuals who were directly targeted. Successful self-protection did not always mean killing the perpetrator; the collection of cases also includes instances where attackers fled after facing resistance, dropped their weapons, or were held at bay until they could be arrested. The crucial factor was that the armed citizens were able to interrupt an ongoing threat. One example is the attack on a dental practice in Colonial Heights, Tennessee, on February 13, 2019. According to documented accounts, a man shot and killed his wife—who worked at the practice—and then turned his weapon on others. A patient, who held a permit to carry a concealed firearm, opened fire on the attacker. In Syracuse, New York, on August 31, 2021, a property manager—using a legally owned handgun—shot and killed a man who had been firing into a crowd. The prosecutor credited him with saving several lives. . . . [Much more]
Also, 2025’s 20% decrease in homicides is the steepest one-year drop since the 16% plunge from 1901 to 1902, under Republican President Theodore Roosevelt.
Aggressive prosecution saves lives. “In Washington, D.C., the Biden administration’s U.S. attorney brought criminal charges against about 33% of those arrested,” John R. Lott Jr. observed in RealClearInvestigations. Today, “Under U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, the charging rate rose to 96%.”
In short: Lock ’em up! . . .
Research by the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) showed that murders with illegally-modified Glocks are less frequent than fatal lightning strikes, with only 40 people dying in attacks using the handguns since the start of 2021, while the National Weather Service confirmed 81 deaths from the meteorological event in the same timeframe. . . .
Aggressive prosecution saves lives. “In Washington, D.C., the Biden administration’s U.S. attorney brought criminal charges against about 33% of those arrested,” John R. Lott Jr. observed in RealClearInvestigations. Today, “Under U.S. Attorney Jeanine Pirro, the charging rate rose to 96%.” . . .
Deroy Murdock, “The GOP’s Accomplishments and Why Americans Should Vote for Conservatives,” Newsline, October 30, 2026.
Did The FBI Undercount Armed Citizens Who Stopped Mass Shootings?
Crime Prevention Research Center president John Lott dropped a number this week that the FBI cannot spin away.
Lott’s count puts the tally at 615 active shooter incidents between 2014 and 2025, with armed citizens stopping 225 of them, a 36.6 percent clip.
FBI data for that same stretch counts just 418 incidents total, crediting armed citizens in only 16 cases.
Do the math and the federal government’s official record comes up 209 armed citizens short of what actually happened.
Lott excluded another 35 cases entirely, incidents where armed citizens stopped attackers before a single shot was fired.
He says he first caught the FBI’s undercount while reviewing its active-shooter reports during a stint at the Department of Justice in Trump’s first term.
The Associated Press still pulls its active-shooter data straight from that same undercounted federal database.
Lott’s center builds its count by cross-checking local police reports, court records and news coverage that the federal system simply never logs. . . .
Two amicus briefs in support of the petitioners were submitted by law enforcement organizations. The National Sheriffs’ Association and Western States Sheriffs’ Association filed one brief arguing that assault weapons are not “just used by mass killers.” In another brief, the Peace Officers Research Association of California, California Association of Highway Patrolmen, and Crime Research Prevention Center — an organization founded by widely discredited researcher John Lott — argued that assault weapons bans “produce no measurable reduction in murders, mass shootings, or officer casualties.”
John R. Lott Jr. reports for RealClearInvestigations that felony violent crime fell 25% in 2025, according to the Bureau of Justice Statistics. Except for rape, the declines were the largest one-year reductions recorded since data collection began 53 years ago. Lott reports that the historic drop, which followed a 59% rise in felony violent crime under Biden, shows the payoff of the Trump administration’s embrace of traditional law and order over the Biden-era emphasis on social justice. . . .
Anyone inclined to dismiss the abatement in crime as partisan, pre-election propaganda should review the detailed analysis prepared by Dr. John Lott on just how profoundly things have changed under President Donald Trump when compared to the Biden-Harris administration and its pro-criminal, revolving-door, “social justice” policies.
Dr. Lott’s analysis, Go Figure: Arrests, Prosecutions and Deportations Fuel Record Drop in Crime(RealClearInvestigations), relies on the government’s most recently released Bureau of Justice Statistics’ National Crime Victimization Survey (NCVS) for 2025.
Unlike the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) national crime statistics, the NCVS uses information obtained annually from a nationally representative sample of U.S. households on the frequency and characteristics of the criminal victimization experienced by the respondents, and includes incidents that are not reported to police (or not reported by law enforcement agencies to the FBI).
Given that in 2024, “victims reported only about 48% of violent crimes and 31% of property crimes” to police, the NCVS is a far more accurate yardstick of crime. The Bureau of Justice Statistics, for instance, recorded a 2025 decline in felony violent crime “that was 157% larger than the FBI’s and a decline in property crime that was 32% larger.”
The NCVS data shows that as compared to 2024, in 2025 several kinds of violent and property crimes declined by double-digit numbers. Felony violent crime fell by 25%, rapes by 13%, robberies by 27%, and aggravated assault dropped 31%. All categories of property crimes declined significantly as well, with an overall property crime drop of 19%. With the exception of rape, Dr. Lott states that “these are the largest one-year reductions recorded since data collection began 53 years ago.”
Further, although the NCVS only tracks non-fatal crimes, FBI data shows murder rates in 2025 have mirrored the historic decline in other violent crimes. Last year’s murder rate was 4.1/100K pop., down from roughly 5.1/100K in 2024, and the rate continues to fall. “If preliminary FBI data showing an additional 18.4% decline during the first seven months of 2026 hold for the full year, the murder rate would fall to approximately 3.36 per 100,000.”
Three factors make these statistics especially compelling.
First, they follow a Biden-era crime wave during 2021-2024, when felony violent crime skyrocketed by 59% and violent crime, including misdemeanor simple assault, jumped by 42%.
Second, far from being a minor statistical blip, these drops “go far beyond normal cyclical fluctuations in crime.” Professor Carl Moody, a crime researcher quoted in the RealClearInvestigations article, describes it as “a historic plunge in crime to levels never seen before in the United States,” adding, “we are all safer in our communities than we ever have been.” . . .
Staff, “TRUMP’S GUN RIGHTS POLICIES MAKING AMERICA SAFE AGAIN,” NRA-ILA, November 2, 2026.
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