John Lott’s work was quoted extensively in this article in the Washington Post by Michelle Lee. On Obama’s claims about mass public shootings being unique to the US, the Post only gave him two Pinocchios.
John R. Lott Jr., gun rights analyst who has tracked mass shooting rates in the United States and European countries, said Obama’s references to “frequency” are problematic and inaccurate: “If you are going to compare the U.S. to someplace else, if you are going to compare it to small countries, you have to adjust for population. Alternatively, compare the U.S. to Europe as a whole.” Comparing to the U.S. to Europe (including OECD and non-OCED countries) from 2009 to 2015 shows the rate of mass shootings in the U.S. and Europe are about the same, Lott said. (Lott uses the FBI definition of four or more killings in a public space, excludes gang or crime related activity, and includes acts identified as terrorism.)
Astute readers might notice how Lankford and Lott both compared the United States to grouped European countries, but their conclusions are vastly different. Lott says the rate is about the same, while Lankford says the rate is five times higher in the United States. How is this possible? The researchers are looking at different sets of years and different sets of countries (Lott looked at Europe as a whole; Lankford at European Union). Lott uses a broader measure of mass shootings than Lankford does. Lankford looks at number of shooters, Lott uses fatalities and shooting incidents. This is an example of how the data and definition can be adjusted to show different findings about mass shootings, even using per capita rate.
The most accurate way that Obama has described shootings, Lott said, was his statement after the Oregon shooting: “We are the only advanced country on Earth that sees these kinds of mass shootings every few months.”
Still, Lott added: “I don’t know what sense it makes to say, ‘I have an area of 320 million people, and I’m going to compare it to 8 million, or even 40 million people. I would expect, just out of randomness, to have more of whatever event to happen in a country of 320 million people.”
But John Roman, senior fellow in the Justice Policy Center at the Urban Institute, agreed with the underlying message of Obama’s statement, regarding the prevalence of mass shooting incidents in the United States. Frequency is “about how often something happens, not about how many people were affected by any single event,” such as the 2011 Norway shootings, he said. . . .
With regard to Roman’s claim, the term frequency can apply to the rate of attacks or the rate that people die from these attacks.
Hi John
May I make an observation?
The studies are omitting the inclusion of non-firearm mass killings which are not gang or crime related. Thus when a mad person attacks school kids in China, its not counted as a mass killing, in fact its not counted at all.
What would be very interesting is to see the rate of mass killings regardless of tool. This would include arson, stabbings, bombings, even running down a crowd with a car (if intentional).
There is an attempt to lead the onlooker into believing that if you reduce guns you reduce mass killings. I have my doubts about that, surely if someone is intent on killing a lot of people they will use the tool they can get their hands on? Can’t get a gun, use a knife, bomb or box of matches.