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Thursday, October 12, 2017

Media conflate data on mass shootings to inflate number, blame white men

Whether you agree with the widely reported statistic that there have been nearly 300 mass shootings this year might depend on how you define “mass shooting.”

In the aftermath of the Las Vegas massacre, left-leaning media outlets have been playing fast and loose with the data on mass shootings to inflate their number and suggest that white men make up a disproportionate share of the perpetrators.

John R. Lott, founder and president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, said the left uses an overly broad definition to capture gang violence and other incidents not typically considered to be mass shootings.

“It’s two different types of shootings we’re talking about: mass public shootings and shootings that occur in a public place as part of some other crime, like gang fights,” said Mr. Lott, author of “The War on Guns: Arming Yourself Against Gun Control Lies.” “So when they want to emphasize that they’re committed by whites, they use the traditional definition of mass public shootings, like the Las Vegas attack that we just had. But when they want to make people think that this happens all the time, then they use a different definition.”

On Oct. 2, the day after the Las Vegas gunman left 58 dead and 489 injured, The New York Times editorial board published a graphic purporting to show 521 mass shootings over the previous 477 days.

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3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Twitter shut down Rose Mcgowen's account for talking against Harvey W,real tolerant of them.We all know now they don't give a hoot about women or free speech rights.

Anonymous said...

Seems to me like they are using numbers from two different definitions of mass shootings. If they're talking about a single shooter opening fire on a large group, it may very well be mainly white men. But the number they use for the number of "mass shootings" includes gang shootouts. Those are almost all Hispanic and black. And if they're going to say white men only make up 31 percent of the population it's because they are excluding women (so that's 31 percent out of the 50 percent that are male). Way to twist the statistics!

Anonymous said...

and they don't mention the other mass shootings in other countries, and that they are WORSE than our own. obammy and the like would have you to believe that the U.S. is the ONLY country where this happens, which is simply NOT TRUE.