The July report by billionaire Michael Bloomberg’s funded gun-control group Everytown for Gun Safety is “riddled with errors,” including mistakes in the number of shootings reported, the extent of the shooter’s mental illness and even where the attacks occurred, according to an analysis by gun researcher John Lott.
Since 2009 through mid-July of this year, there have been 25 mass shootings — compared with Everytown’s claim of at least 110 — 8 percent have happened in places that have allowed civilians to defend themselves, and 52 percent of time there was a clear indication of mental illness before the attack, says the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) report.
“Everytown’s recent analysis of mass shootings is riddled with errors,” wrote Mr. Lott, president of CPRC, in its abstract dated Sept. 30, released to The Washington Times.
“Those errors occurred because they did not do a complete news search on each case,” he wrote. “They made simple accounting errors and included cases that did not fit their claimed criteria. Also, their arbitrary definition of ‘assault weapons’ seems chosen to obtain the results that fit their ideological agenda. Their numbers should not be relied on for any type of policy analysis.”
In July, Everytown released a report titled “The Real Story of Mass Shootings in America,” finding that since January 2009 there have been at least 110 mass shootings in the U.S, 14 percent were committed in gun-free zones, and 11 percent of the perpetrators exhibited signs of mental illness.
The discrepancy between Mr. Lott’s findings and Everytown’s analysis highlights the dearth of objective gun-related data by non-partisan organizations or think-tanks. Everytown’s analysis has been stated as fact by President Barack Obama and other gun-control advocates to pursue their ideological agenda, even as independent fact-checkers have debunked many of its claims.
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