JOHN LOTT: The Problem With the FBI’s ‘Active Shooter’ Data.

The FBI’s first report claimed that only once from 2000-2013 did a concealed handgun permit holder stop one of 160 reported “active shooter” attacks. These active shooter attacks include any time a gun is fired in a public place, even if no one is injured or killed. They exclude gang fights or attacks that arise out of other crimes such as robberies.

The report got massive news coverage on the front pages of such newspapers as the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times, as well as all of the TV news networks. Gun control activists have frequently cited the report in court cases and in political debates to claim that civilians rarely use guns to stop public shootings.

Unfortunately, the problems with the reports have continued during the Trump administration. The latest FBI report, released in May, misses still more cases. The FBI claims that from 2014 to 2017 there were 90 active shooter cases and only seven where permit holders stopped these attacks.

In all, the FBI claims that concealed handgun permit holders have stopped 3.2 percent of active shooter incidents.

But the bureau misses at least 23 cases where permit holders saved the day. That means they stopped 11.5 percent of active shooter incidents from 2000 to 2017. We at the Crime Prevention Research Center are more confident that we have all of the cases from 2014 to 2017, when 16.5 percent of attacks were stopped.

I don’t trust much of anything coming out of the FBI these days.