Obama’s Gun-Control Misfire

Wall Street Journal ^ | June 9, 2015 | JASON L. RILEY

[richardb72]

Last September the Obama administration produced an FBI report that said mass shooting attacks and deaths were up sharply—by an average annual rate of about 16% between 2000 and 2013. Moreover, the problem was worsening. “The findings establish an increasing frequency of incidents,” said the authors. “During the first 7 years included in the study, an average of 6.4 incidents occurred annually. In the last 7 years of the study, that average increased to 16.4 incidents annually.”

The White House could not possibly have been more pleased with the media reaction to these findings, which were prominently featured by the New York Times, USA Today, CNN, the Washington Post and other major outlets. The FBI report landed six weeks before the midterm elections, and the administration was hoping that the gun-control issue would help drive Democratic turnout.

But late last week, J. Pete Blair and M. Hunter Martaindale, two academics at Texas State University who co-authored the FBI report, acknowledged that “our data is imperfect.” They said that the news media “got it wrong” last year when they “mistakenly reported mass shootings were on the rise.”

Mind you, the authors did not issue this mea culpa in the major news outlets that supposedly misreported the original findings. Instead, the authors published it in ACJS Today, an academic journal published by the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences. “Because official data did not contain the information we needed, we had to develop our own,” wrote Messrs. Blair and Martaindale. “This required choices between various options with various strengths and weaknesses.” You don’t say. . . .

[Don Corleone]

They said that the news media “got it wrong” last year when they “mistakenly reported mass shootings were on the rise.”

I was on vacation at that time. My deputy got it wrong. He has been reassigned to a gulag and his chocolate ration stopped.

S.

Winston Smith

[Notthemomma]

Thanks for the story heads-up, but it’s a subscription website (WSJ) so I can’t read it. I’ll have to look for the story reported after the fact by another source, or get the journal from the library—ain’t paying for a WSJ subscription. Would have been nice if you could have summarized the story a bit, especially the part (where I had to stop reading) where the “researchers” were starting to explain that they had to generate their own data (I think that’s where they were going with it).

[Duckdog]

First problem: Thinking anyone is believing anything from the Main Stream Media!

[lepton]

There’s also a 2013 article by Strassel with the same name.

[jsanders2001]

Does that include the figures from staged shootings ordered by the administration to rile up the liberals and incite riots?

[skyman]

Do you think they care about the truth? It’s all about the administration getting their agenda out to the willing media who will run with anything that is anti-gun and probably embellish it even more.

[Still Thinking]

Last September the Obama administration produced an FBI report that said mass shooting attacks and deaths were up sharply—by an average annual rate of about 16% between 2000 and 2013. Moreover, the problem was worsening. “The findings establish an increasing frequency of incidents,” said the authors. “During the first 7 years included in the study, an average of 6.4 incidents occurred annually. In the last 7 years of the study, that average increased to 16.4 incidents annually.”

That doesn't sound like we need more "gun control" laws. Judging from the dates, it sounds like it will probably correct itself once The Won is finally out of orifice. If he wants to do something proactive to help, he should just resign.