Oops: Study Used To Push Gun Control Embarrassingly Debunked
According to a study by criminologist Adam Lankford that’s gotten major play in the liberal media, the United States accounted for a whopping 31 percent of mass shootings while only holding less than 5 percent of the world’s population.
The real percentage of the world’s mass shootings that come from the USA? Less than 3 percent according to the Crime Prevention Research Center.
So how did Lankford get it wrong? He stuck to the left’s talking points, claiming his astronomically high number was due to gun ownership in America. His numbers were even happily published by The New York Times in November 2017, complete with charts and four different language versions.
The real reason Lankford’s study falls apart? Simply a dangerous mix of bad facts and bad math.
John R. Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center wrote that because Lankford “has neither identified the cases nor their location nor even a complete description on how he put the cases together, it is impossible to replicate his findings.”
Lott continued to hammer Lankford for his lack of transparency: “It is particularly important that Lankford share his data because of the extreme difficulty in finding mass shooting cases in remote parts of the world going back to 1966. Lack of media coverage could easily lead to under-counting of foreign mass shootings, which would falsely lead to the conclusion that the U.S. has such a large share.”
The study falls apart while looking at some of the most basic “facts” Lankford claims.
His original publication puts the number of public mass shootings outside the United States at 202 in between 1966 and 2012. If you think this is absurdly low, you’re right. The real number is over 3,000, according to the Crime Prevention Research Center. And that’s only counting the last 15 years of Lankford’s 47-year time frame.
Lott’s paper affirms that ‘attacks in the US are not only less frequent than in other countries, they are also much less deadly on average.’
Most of you gun owners don’t need a Ph.D. in statistical analysis to know why.
With 112 guns per 100 residents, America is armed to the teeth. Gun control advocates would like you to think that this makes the U.S. a war zone, but unsurprisingly, the only place that even comes close is anti-gun Chicago. (How else could it earn the nickname Chiraq?)
Despite the sometimes-deadly blue cities and urban violence, most of America defies gun grabbers’ stereotypes.
Gun owners are not the redneck buffoons seen in political cartoons. Of course, you’ll find the occasional gun owner who gives the rest a bad name, but the vast majority of us respect firearms as the powerful tools they are. We’re responsible sportsmen, enthusiasts, and hobbyists who want our Second Amendment rights to be left alone.
“An armed society is a polite society” is how writer Robert Heinlein best described it. “Manners are good when one may have to back up his acts with his life.”
This is true of more conservative states, where the freedom of open carry and concealed carry makes criminals think twice about whom they victimize. Even old ladies can even the odds against entire gangs with a few well-placed shots.
In most of America, the Second Amendment functions as intended. We’re not subject to rampant crime nor a tyrannical government.
And no study, no matter how fake, can take that God-given right away from us.
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