FBI Shaped Report To Suggest Increase In Mass Shootings, When They’d Actually Been HALVED

The stunning revelation that the Federal Bureau of Investigation shaped data on mass shootings in an apparent bid to generate support for gun control is just the latest crooked action by a rogue Obama Administration.

John Lott of the Crime Prevention Research Center says that the FBI’s data shows signs of intentional manipulation.

FBI figures released last September appear to show so-called “mass shooter” attacks and deaths have dramatically increased since 2000. The report asserted there were a total 160 such incidents in public places between 2000 and 2013, with attacks dramatically increased to 17 in 2013 from just one in 2000. The statistics also showed murders jumping to 86 from just seven over the span.

But Lott’s group said a major flaw is the fact that the data was gleaned from news reports, and noted recent accounts were more accessible, and thus over-represented. Recent cases of the far more common “active shooting incidents” were added to legitimate cases of mass shooting incidents, making the more recent years covered by the report appear to have a large increase in both mass shootings and deaths from them.

The media most often took the numbers at face value, allowing for the perception of an increase in mass shootings and deaths from them, Lott said. A counter report by the CPRCshows that if the biases and errors were corrected, the Bureau’s data would show that the annual growth rate for homicides in mass shootings had been cut in half, Lott said.

He suspects manipulation, and not merely mistakes.

“The administration has obviously been willing to do a lot to push for gun control; with everything from ‘Operation Choke Point’ to ‘Fast and Furious,’ and this is just part of that push. Given the level of politicization in [the] Department of Justice, this is not particularly surprising.”

Another researcher interviewed in the article assets that while the media certain ran with the false data, he puts the blame on the media for misinterpreting the FBI’s report.

So is spreading this false claim the FBI’s fault, or the media’s fault?

Yes.

As a general rule, the media is full of people who are intellectually lazy, who are not experts in their fields, and who have overt political biases which are easily exploited.

As most reporters are predisposed towards an anti-gun viewpoint, their confirmation bias is exploited by those (in this instance, the FBI) who want to use the reporters to shape a false narrative.

The FBI intentionally wrote their report in such a way that it would likely be read in such a way as to give a false impression. They then refused to correct this false impressions when they went to print, allowing reporters to push a lie.

In this instance, the media were stooges… but they were willing stooges, eager to share a lie that they wanted to believe.