Americans packing heat have stopped active shootings at least 10 times more than the FBI has counted, showing that life-saving actions by armed citizens are much more common than the liberal anti-gun media reports.
In a new review of 10 years of active shooter reports, a top public safety think tank said that good Samaritans stopped 36%-62% of the incidents, far more than the 3.7% the FBI and media commonly claim.
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The Crime Prevention Research Center explained that the competing numbers are due to the FBI’s restrictive definition of active shootings and its misclassification of many.
For example, the center said the FBI doesn’t include in its count cases where armed citizens show their weapons but don’t shoot, and still thwart a mass shooting. In others, it has classified volunteer security guards as professionals.
More importantly, said the center’s President John R. Lott Jr., his report shows that having armed citizens is much more of a lifesaver than the FBI and media have told.
“The FBI defines an active shooter as one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a public place, not involving gang violence or some other crime such as robbery. Such an incident could be something as minor as one person being shot at and missed up to a mass public shooting. While the FBI includes cases where civilians stop active shooters, the news media frequently relies on the limited number of these cases to argue that such interventions are rare,” said the report.
“Evidence compiled by the Crime Prevention Research Center shows that the sources the media relied on undercounted the number of instances in which armed citizens have thwarted such attacks by an order of more than ten, saving untold numbers of lives. Of course, law-abiding citizens stopping these attacks are not rare. What is rare is national news coverage of those incidents,” added Lott’s report, shared Monday with Washington Secrets.
In his report, an update of his 2022 analysis, Lott said that there were at least 561 cases of active shooters between 2014 and 2024. The FBI cites 374. He also said that of those 561 active shooter reports, 202 were stopped by an armed citizen. The FBI said that 14 of 374, or 3.7%, were stopped by an armed citizen.
Lott’s report found that the FBI overlooked 42 active shooter reports and missed 145 others.
The point of his report wasn’t to be critical of the agency but to tell a broader story about the effectiveness of legally armed citizens and how they are more important in stopping active shooters than reported by the media.
His report also challenged the media narrative that having more armed people is dangerous. The report countered that with a PoliceOne poll that 86% of law enforcement officers disagree.
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“News outlets often raise concerns that allowing concealed handgun carry will result in innocent bystanders being shot or in police accidentally shooting permit holders,” said the report. For example, it added, “All the experts interviewed by the Washington Post and New York Times argue that stopping these attacks should be left to the police.”
But many in law enforcement note that it takes time for police to get to an active shooter scene, and those minutes can be deadly. Lott’s report quoted noted arms expert Massad Ayoob: “When a life-threatening crisis strikes and seconds count, the real first responders are the citizens present.”