With No Hint of an Agenda

FBI Data on Good Guys With Guns Called ‘Garbage’ as Critic Finds Many More Cases
Washington Times | March 20, 2023 | Stephen Dinan

Mercedes Perez crashed her car into another car on a San Antonio street in 2021 and then jumped out with a gun and blazed away at neighbors who came out of their homes to see what happened.

She killed one man, the car’s owner, and wounded his wife and son before another neighbor heard the shooting. He grabbed his gun and ran to the scene, where he killed Perez with a shot to the neck.

John Lott, founder of the Crime Prevention Research Center, said it’s a case of a good guy with a gun stopping a bad guy with a gun.

Yet the incident was left out of the FBI’s database of active shooting incidents.

Mr. Lott said it’s one of dozens of such incidents missing from the bureau’s statistics, which he said has fueled a false narrative that rarely do good guys with guns stop shootings.

The FBI says the rate of active shooting incidents ended by good guys with guns is 4.4% over the years. Mr. Lott says it’s 34.4%.

The FBI’s conclusions are widely cited, particularly as new shootings revive old debates about gun control and whether more access to weapons is safer or more dangerous.

When an armed citizen does intervene and it draws national headlines — as happened at an Indiana mall food court last year — news accounts are quick to point to the FBI’s findings as evidence that it’s a rarity. The FBI’s numbers also have been used in court cases, and they pepper legislative debates on Capitol Hill and in state assemblies.

Mr. Lott said the numbers are so distorted by shoddy work and judgment calls that they are not just worthless but also misleading.