Dozens of news outlets reported that America has the most mass shooters in the world. Many say that shows America needs more gun control.
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CNN claimed that "the U.S. has the most mass shootings". The WSJ reported that "U.S. leads the world in mass shootings." Nearly every major media outlet and former President Obama said the same.
But the claim is based on just one study, and the author of that study, Adam Lankford, would not release his data to other gun reseachers in the field.
Economist John Lott argues that Lankford's study has many flaws.
Lott is the author of the books “More Guns, Less Crime” and “Bias against Guns.” His son, Maxim Lott, works for Stossel TV.
Stossel says because of that, he repeatedly asked Lankford to show him the study data that he would not reveal to Lott. But Lankford would not disclose it to Stossel either.
Lankford claimed to find "complete data" for all mass shootings in 171 countries from 1966 to 2012. But Lott notes that Lankford doesn’t reveal basic details about how he found shootings in so many countries -- most of which don’t speak English. And most of those years, those countries didn’t have the internet.
Lott argues that finding complete data for mass shooters in just one developing country, such as India, would be an incredible feat, as many shootings would be reported only in local outlets in the local language.
U.S. mass shootings, on the other hand, are well-documented and hard to miss.
Lott says that if Lankford missed foreign cases but found all the U.S. ones, his paper’s entire conclusion that the US has the most mass shooters could fall apart.
Lankford has declined to answer questions about how he searched for foreign-language cases.
Did Lankford miss foreign cases? Because Lankford would not release hi..
