Gun-related statistics generated by federal agencies have become suspect. In some cases, simple searches of media reports for certain types of crime shows, for example, that the FBI’s official data has holes in it. In some cases, it appears to be heavily biased; for example, the number of “active shooters” stopped by armed citizens turns out to be much higher than the FBI data lets on. If the FBI would take so-called “gun-free zones” from the equation, they’d have to report that, when good citizens can go armed, they often do stop murderers.
For answers as to what’s happening within these agencies, we asked John Lott, the noted crime researcher and the founder and president of the Crime Prevention Research Center.
As you’ll see in this video, his answers—from when he worked with the Department of Justice for the Trump administration to his research with his nonprofit—are astounding.
And this is important, as the mainstream media likes to use federal statistics as hooks for their one-sided gun-control narratives; as a result, this spin impacts public opinion, which can influence policy.
In this video interview, Lott talks about his time working as a senior adviser for research and statistics at the Office of Justice Programs—a Department of Justice division that doles out about $5 billion in grants each year—and about his research into crime and gun ownership. Lott has a lot to say about the statistics these agencies publish.
Indeed, as crime is a big and important topic in this upcoming election, this matters to our ongoing battle for freedom.
