On July 30, 2024, the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) published a paper showing massive errors in the FBI Active Shooter Reports from 2014 through 2023.
In that time, I have personally been following the issue throughout. The first viral post I wrote about the subject of armed civilians stopping mass murders was published on December 15, 2012. It had 16 incidents documented from October 1997 to 11 December 2012. All of these incidents occurred before the FBI started collecting data on “active shooter” incidents.
The CPRC paper, with a solid institution and organization behind it, does a better job than a single blogger did at the end of 2012.
The Crime Prevention Research Center report claims the FBI’s active shooter reports from 2014 through 2023 badly undercount armed citizens who stopped attacks. According to the CPRC, the FBI listed only 14 active shooter incidents stopped by defensive gun use during that period, while the CPRC found 180 such cases.
The CPRC shows how badly the FBI has bungled the job of tracking these events. The first FBI report was published ten months later, during the Obama administration, in September 2014. The CPRC covered the problems with the FBI report in October 2014.
The reason for the difference in the numbers reported by the FBI is not immediately obvious. It happens because the FBI structured its approach to identifying incidents and determining whether they qualify for inclusion.
According to the FBI, under the Obama administration, the FBI started to report “active shooter incidents” as part of the Investigative Assistance for Violent Crimes Act of 2012, 28 USC 530C(b)(1)(M)(i). The research for the report appears to have been done at Texas State University, with an overview by FBI Agent Katherine W. Schweit. Later reports were also contracted to and researched at Texas State University.
The FBI definition of an “active shooter” is stated below:
From the 2016-17 report:
“The FBI defines an active shooter as one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area. Implicit in this definition is the shooter’s use of one or more firearms.”
From the 2013 Study:
“Incidents identified in this study do not encompass all gun-related situations; therefore caution should be taken when using this information without placing it in context. Specifically, shootings that resulted from gang or drug violence—pervasive, long-tracked, criminal acts that could also affect the public—were not included in this study.”
Those definitions, together, create a system that is inherently subjective. It is a system that depends on a great deal of judgment on the part of the people grading the incidents. John Lott investigated the process, seeking answers from the FBI on why certain incidents were included while others were excluded.
Here is an answer he received from an FBI administrator. From email to John Lott in response to queries about incidents, by Shayne E. Buchwald of the FBI, dated May 16, 2018, 7:36 AM:
“The selection of cases for inclusion in these reports is the result of a consensus vote of analysts and Law Enforcement professionals using the methodology stated in the original 2013 study. In some cases, a level of interpretation is required with which all may not agree. The FBI notes your differing opinion in the stated cases.”
My understanding of consensus voting depends on the specific method used. In a small group, it usually means everyone agrees with the decision. If such is the approach, any member of the group has veto power over whether an incident is included. Any member may exclude incidents, but all members must include any incident. Such a system minimizes the number of incidents that are included.
The CPRC article gives example after example of incidents that were excluded, while others that are very similar are included. There is a high correlation between incidents stopped by armed “civilians” and incidents that are excluded. Incidents are also mislabeled. In the West Freeway Church incident, the volunteer church security action was labeled a “defense” by a “security guard” rather than an armed civilian, even though the defender was an unpaid volunteer.
The CPRC reports 515 active shooter incidents, which they believe meet the FBI definition. This is 165 more incidents than those judged by the FBI to meet the definition. The FBI shows only 14 incidents where “active shooters” were stopped by defensive gun use. The CRPC shows 180 incidents stopped by defensive gun uses, or 166 more than the FBI.
Because of the subjective nature of identifying and including incidents and the nature of “consensus voting”, the FBI can justify its selection of some incidents and exclusion of others. The CPRC report shows how subjective and exclusionary this process is. The selection of incidents to be voted on by consensus is subjective. The grading of chosen incidents is subjective. It is not surprising that those who value armed defense of self and others grade the incidents differently.
The FBI was created in the Progressive ideological era, where government was seen as the solution, and never as the problem. Progressive ideology believes restrains on government are bad. The earliest report of justified homicide statistics found by this correspondent by the FBI is dated 1976.
Clayton Cramer does an excellent job of showing how the FBI undercounts justifiable homicides by a factor of 5-1 in his 2016 academic paper. Only 15%-20% of justified homicide are recorded in the FBI Uniform Crime Reports. This correspondent wrote about the undercount problem in 2015. The undercount of justified homicides is part of the institutional bias at the FBI. The undercount of armed defenders who stop active shooters appears to be an extension of such a bias.
It is not hard to understand how people who believe the population is unable to govern itself, are reluctant to admit armed civilians are a significant part of an effective defense against mass murder. It is not hard to understand how people with such an ideology are subject to confirmation bias by excluding such incidents from their reporting.
Whether such bias is justified can be determined by each reader. Go to the CPRC website and look at the incidents that were excluded from the FBI report. Draw your own conclusions.
The problem is larger than the FBI. The old media had/has a progressive ideological bias that minimizes coverage of such incidents. I once had a naive belief that when a mass murderer was stopped by an armed defender, it would be national news, a “man bites dog” story. It would go “viral”.
The opposite happened in 1999 when a gun store employee stopped a mass murder by shooting the would-be murderer. The story was covered locally. With the internet in its infancy in 1999, the story quickly disappeared. You can find an excerpt on freerepublic, where it was placed in 2012. How quickly the story disappeared convinced this correspondent to start keeping track.
Today, the CRPC does an excellent job of tracking incidents of armed defenders.
About Dean Weingarten:
Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.
Come on now. We ALL know that ANY three-letter agency will minimize the truth whenever they can. ESPECIALLY if it pertains to citizens rightfully & legally using their firearms in self-defense situations. If the facts come back that the citizen was justified in their actions, that gets swept under the rug. ESPECIALLY if the demographics don’t fit the narrative.