Investigation Debunks Widely Cited Mass Shootings Stats

Day After NPR Shatters School Shootings Myth, New Peer-Reviewed Report Shoots Holes Through Adam Lankford’s Research

Estimated US share of world mass public shooters cut by over 95%

WASHINGTON, DC, August 29, 2018 — A new investigation of the research behind reported mass shootings globally was released today by the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) and offers the strongest evidence yet that the research driving statistics widely cited by the media are fraudulent. The report arrives a day after NPR’s explosive story documenting how the number of school shootings reported by the Department of Education is fabricated.

The report, entitled “How a Botched Study Fooled the World About the US Share of Mass Public Shootings: US Rate is Lower than Global Average,” is authored by CPRC President John R. Lott, and is being praised by academics and experts in the field.

“The power of this report should convince academic and medical groups to reevaluate all prior statistical studies of mass shootings and the overall public health danger of firearms,” said Professor Arthur Z Berg, M.D., DLF APA, Harvard University emeritus.

The top graph (hyperlink) in the new report is an interactive graph, where if you click on a country it will provide the number of murders from mass public shootings, murder rate from these attacks, and allow you to download cases by individual country or for all the countries.

In 2016, Adam Lankford, a University of Alabama Criminology Professor, authored a report on mass public shootings that received global media attention, garnering coverage in outlets such as the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, the Washington Post, and countless other outlets spanning at least 35 countries. And it continues to receive regular coverage.

As the CPRC report states, “Lankford’s claim was that over the 47 years from 1966 to 2012, an enormous amount of the world’s mass public shooters — 31% — occurred in the United States. Lankford attributed this to America’s gun ownership.”

“Lankford claims to have ‘complete’ data on such shooters in 171 countries. However, because he has neither identified the cases nor their location nor even a complete description of how he put the cases together, it is impossible to replicate his findings.”

The CPRC report continues. “Lankford’s study reported that from 1966 to 2012, there were 90 public mass shooters in the United States and 202 in the rest of world. We find that Lankford’s data represent a gross undercount of foreign attacks. Our list contains 1,448 attacks outside the United States over just the last 15 years of the period that Lankford examined. . . .

“Even when we use coding choices that are most charitable to Lankford, his 31 percent estimate of the US’s share of world mass public shooters is cut by over 95 percent. . . . Attacks in the US are not only less frequent than in other countries, they are also much less deadly on average.

“Given the massive U.S. and international media attention Lankford’s work has received, and given the considerable impact his research has had on the debate, it is critical that this issue be resolved. His unwillingness to provide even the most basic information to other researchers raises real concerns about Lankford’s motives.”

Additional peers who have reviewed the CPRC report have provided critical analysis to both CPRC and Lankford’s widely reported research.

Professor Carl Moody, College of William & Mary offered the following: “This is an important paper. The assertion that the US is responsible for 31 percent of worldwide mass shootings is patently absurd. Anyone who doubts the veracity of Dr Lott’s analysis is welcome to download, for free and in Excel format, the entire Global Terrorism Database (https://www.start.umd.edu/gtd/contact/). There they will find, with a simple back of the envelope calculation, that worldwide since 1970 there have been 58,445 mass firearm attacks. Of these, 402 have occurred in the United States. The US is, according to the GTD. responsible for less than one percent of all mass shootings (0.69 percent) since 1970. Dr Lott’s calculations are much more carefully done, but Professor Lankford’s analysis is clearly not in the ballpark. Also, social scientists seldom have laboratories. Replication is the only way to verify claims. Any academic who refuses to share his or her data for replication purposes deserves to be shunned.”

Over these 15 years, the US ranks 56th in attack rate and 61st in the murder rate. Norway, Finland, Switzerland and Russia are major European countries with at least 45% higher rates of murder from mass public shootings than the United States.

Even the White House cited Lankford’s claim in justifying the US President’s own statements.

“I say this every time we’ve got one of these mass shootings: This just doesn’t happen in other countries.” –Obama, news conference at COP21 climate conference in Paris, Dec. 1, 2015

“The one thing we do know is that we have a pattern now of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere else in the world.” –President Obama, interview that aired on CBS Evening News, Dec. 2, 2015

“You don’t see murder on this kind of scale, with this kind of frequency, in any other advanced nation on Earth.” — President Obama, speech at U.S. Conference of Mayors, June 19, 2015

“Because of faulty research, it is widely believed that a disproportionate share — 31% — of the world’s mass public shooters occurred in the United States,” said Professor Paul Rubin, Samuel Candler Dobbs Professor of Economics, Emory University. “In fact, John Lott’s careful analysis of a very large data set — 437 — pages — shows that the proper number is about 2%, less than the U.S. share of world population. One can only hope that this important research will correct the record.”

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