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(AP Photo/Brynn Anderson)
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By Lee Williams

In an online story published Friday, CNN admits they used data from the debunked Gun Violence Archive to claim there have been 641 mass shootings in the United States during 2021 – an average of 1.94 mass shootings per day.

Think about that – nearly two mass shootings per day. I’m surprised the legacy media had time to cover anything else, such as COVID, Joe Biden’s daily foibles or the tanking economy, since their news crews must have been running from one mass shooting to another every single day, right?

CNN publicly stated they used the Gun Violence Archive’s flawed data:

“The Gun Violence Archive, a non-profit based in Washington, DC and which CNN relies on for its reporting of mass shootings, defines a mass shooting as an incident leaving at least four people dead or injured, excluding the shooter, and does not differentiate victims based upon the circumstances in which they were shot,” the authors admit. “They counted as many as 417 mass shootings in 2019. And this year, 641 incidents have been recorded.”

The authors actually admit relying upon the GVA for “reporting of mass shootings.” Relying upon the GVA for any news story is toxic. We debunked the Gun Violence Archive in July, in a special report titled: “The Gun Violence Archive and its Scaring of America.”

The GVA is a small nonprofit that was founded in 2013 by Michael Klein, a left-leaning philanthropist and open-government advocate, and Mark Bryant, a retired computer analyst and GVA’s current executive director.

The problem is how Bryant and his 20 staffers define mass shootings. When most people hear the term “mass shooting,” they picture a crazed gunman stalking the halls of a school or a shopping mall, coldly and randomly executing innocent young victims. What does not come to mind are rival drug crews shooting it out in Chicago or Detroit, or a madman murdering his entire family, which no sane person would consider a mass shooting. The GVA makes no such distinction. If four people are wounded, the GVA labels it a mass shooting regardless of the circumstances, and the media and anti-gun politicians lap up the GVA’s inflated stats.

According to Bryant’s all-inclusive definition, there were 417 mass shootings in 2019. The FBI says there were 30, because it uses a much narrower and more realistic definition. You decide which figure is more accurate and more honest.

Fact or Fake news
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CNN isn’t the only organization to be hoodwinked by the inflated GVA stats. The Biden/Harris administration has cited GVA’s data, as have a bevy of other elected officials and political candidates, at the local, state and federal level. The New York Times, National Public Radio, USA TODAY and a host of other media outlets also use GVA’s definition when reporting about mass shootings, because the bigger and scarier the number, the more clicks the story will receive.

When I interviewed Bryant in July for our special report, I asked him if he actually believed that the average news consumer even considers domestic violence or gang warfare when they hear the term mass shooting. Bryant replied, “I don’t know. I know what we want to do is provide numbers and let the journalists, advocates and ‘congress critters’ look at the data, glean details and drill down on it.”

Unfortunately, today’s legacy journalists and anti-rights politicians are too lazy to do any drilling down. They prefer to cut and paste Bryan’s off-the-charts stats.

The bottom line: Bryant and his GVA know full well they’re supplying flawed data, which the media treats as gospel. I’m guessing Bryant and his anti-gun pals are laughing about it, too.

 

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This story is part of the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project and is published here with their permission.

 

 

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42 COMMENTS

  1. They are counting every gang shooting, too…every incidence of “mutual combat”…where 4 or more people were shot (not killed).
    Since when did “mass” become 4?
    And even with that definition…are these numbers verified?

    • We’ve heard their sick firearm hating dribble long enough. All the GVA-CNN bunch wants is to lay low and distract while time washes away the vehicle carnage left by a terrorist in Wisconsin just like they did for Afghanistan.

      Media Rats have grown accustomed to pointing their fingers over here, over there and setting the pace. A TV remote control shuts those ratbassturds up lighting fast…Use It.

  2. I suggest that we accept their definition of a “mass shooting” then insist that they collate data on the circumstances, criminal records of the shootees and shooter, and the race of the shooter and shootees. Once people understand that most mass shootings are committed by habitual violent criminals, often during drug deals gone wrong, and that the vast majority of the shooters are Black, the conversation will become different.

    • Mr Fudd is correct, “the conversation will become different” and add nonexistent!
      They don’t have the intestinal fortitude to discuss or report actual facts and truth.
      There may be truth in advertisement, but truth in news by MSM is a past endeavor.

    • You’re talking about organizations that take a black guy running over white people and blame “white supremacy” right after they blamed a white guy shooting white people on “white supremacy” and quite openly use lies (not mistakes) to promote these narratives…

      … and you believe that facts and logic are going to sway them into having some form of rational conversation? What are you smoking and why are you not sharing?

      These people suddenly deviating from their narrative about as likely as Jens Spahn reversing course on his narrative because someone brings up the data from Gibraltar.

      It’s a cult, brah. They don’t do normie type shit like… respond in a rational way to facts.

      • I’m uninterested in having a conversation with the Libtards. They are far beyond all but divine redemption. I am interested in having a conversation with the vast majority of centrists who are neither libtard nor ardent gun owner who are dismayed to witness their communities, as they say in BLAZING SADDLES”, “turning into shit.”. The centrist actually include a majority of African-Americans who are often susceptible to Libtard propaganda but have the brains to recognize reality when it bites them in the ass hard enough. While gun owners need to confront the Libtards propaganda by citing the reality that most gun homicides and the vast majority of mass shootings are perpetrated by Blacks, a significant fraction of these homicides are justified when evaluated rationally and without anti-gun or anti-black prejudice.

  3. Gee I thought the number of mass shootings in America was 300 million .
    Thank goodness weve only got two more months , this keeps up there wont be anyone left to shoot.

  4. “CNN isn’t the only organization to be hoodwinked by the inflated GVA stats.”

    Mr. Williams, are you by chance, in the market for a bridge?

    • He did say something like 200,000 deaths from the Wuflu was disqualifying for the job of the president last year. He also said it was racist to restrict travel from Africa. Yet now he’s restricting travel from Africa, but not the southern border. Hmm

      A border town has recorded a 15% positive Covid infection rate from the illegal immigrants they tested. Apply that to about 2 million illegal immigrants this year. How many people did they spread that to? Even with the low death rate, quite a few people would have died as a direct result of the Puppet’s policies. Why isn’t the media ringing the alarm bells? I thought that was their main concern? Things that make you go hmm.

  5. CNN is a joke. They are so fake in everything they do it’s incomprehensible that anyone actually watches that entertainment network. It’s a stretch to call them a news organization because they aren’t.

  6. Sounds about right when you add Chiraq, Atlantastan, PhilaDeadphia Hutombston and Any number of other Liberal Democrat Controlled cities to the Tally. Just another Weekend in Liberalistan.

    • Dacian isnt here today however.
      To Denseman the Jethro.
      Who flunked preskool and I’m a collage graduate.
      These kinds of gunm related atrocities do not happen in civilized countries such as North Korea, Cambodia, Iraq. They dont just let anyone walk in and buy weapons of mass destruction with out background check or mental evaluation.

      • Careful, or you’ll end up being added to his list for special treatment when his revolution happens. Probably when an unusual meteorological and geographic event occurs, ie: hell freezes over.

        Perhaps he could write another book about his striving to bring enlightened socialism to the USA. Titled “My Struggle, A Triumph of Will”.

  7. How come the difference between the FBI numbers and the numbers quoted by CNN?
    Could it be that someone is just making up crap? Or including shootings between gangsta’s over drug turf and other assorted criminals killing other criminals? Of course, it’s always the legal gun owners who are at fault and always the angry white man doing the shooting. Just can’t admit the vast majority of their claimed mass shootings are just another day in the hood in places like Chicago, Detroit, Houston, St. Louis, Los Angeles, Portland, New York City, and New Orleans.

  8. They should include gang related shootings, that’s a crime just like school shootings. I don’t care if it happens in Chicago or Smalltown USA because it still happened.

  9. “… an average of 1.94 mass shootings per day.”

    Using their numbers codified in the average of 1.94, applying weighted factors of deceased vs wounded (injured) averages and location factors – it works out to a risk of 7.2 % likely to encounter a mass shooting incident. Going back over time for the last 50 years and applying weighted factors of deceased vs wounded (injured) averages and location factors we find the weighted risk of 7.2% likely to have (because this is in the past) encountered a mass shooting incident. In other words, for the last 50 years to present day the risk of encountering a mass shooting as these groups define it as “4 or more” is and has remained 7.2% likely.

    according to the CDC > https://www.cdc.gov/vitalsigns/motor-vehicle-safety/index.html

    “…more than 32,000 people are killed and 2 million are injured each year from motor vehicle crashes. ”

    applying weighted factors of deceased vs wounded (injured) averages and location factors to the average number of car “crashes” per day works out to a risk of 93.4 % likely to encounter injury or death due to car “crash” (96.3% for kids age 12 or younger). Going back over time for the last 50 years and applying weighted factors of deceased vs wounded (injured) averages and location factors we find the weighted risk has changed each year increasing (variable) by ~ 1.8% each year over the last 50 years.

    A person is 93.4 % likely to encounter injury or death due to car “crash” (96.3% for kids age 12 or younger). A person is 7.2% likely to encounter a “mass shooting” as defined by the anti-gun/gun-control groups.

    A person, in terms of weighted risk factors, is safer in a society with guns than they are in a society with cars.

    • “…more than 32,000 people are killed and 2 million are injured each year from motor vehicle crashes. ”

      note: annually ~1.2 to ~1.7 million of that 2 million injured each year will die as a result of those injuries either directly or indirectly (e.g. other diseases that develop due to or as a result of the injury from car crash, suicide because can’t live with being permanently disabled due to car crash injury, other accident due to disability/injury caused by car crash injury, etc…). These are never counted as car crash fatality. If they were counted the number of deaths due to car crash would greatly out number those due to gun. ~90,000 children age 12 and younger are injured in car crashes annually, ~77% of these will commit or attempt, or seriously contemplate and prepare for, suicide later in life (usually in their 20’s) because their quality of life has been destroyed by the car crash injuries.

      • applying weighted factors of deceased vs wounded (injured) averages and location factors to the average number of ladder uses per day works out to a risk of 43.6 % likely to encounter injury or death due to falling off a ladder.

        applying weighted factors of deceased vs wounded (injured) averages and location factors to the average number of unintentional falls (not ladder) per day works out to a risk of 71 % likely to encounter injury or death due to unintentional falls (not ladder).

        applying weighted factors of deceased vs wounded (injured) averages and location factors to the average number of accidental prescription (as legally prescribed by doctor) incidents per day works out to a risk of 52% likely to encounter injury or death due to accidental prescription drug overdose.

        applying weighted factors of deceased vs wounded (injured) averages and location factors to the overall average number of injury mortality per day a person, on average, is 73.5% more likely to encounter injury mortality by sources other than gun.

        applying weighted factors of deceased vs wounded (injured) averages and location factors, a person is more likely to encounter injury or death as a result of something other than a “mass shooting” as defined by the anti-gun/gun-control groups.

        • and i’ll add, with the FBI numbers …

          Based upon the FBI’s numbers of 30 – applying weighted factors of deceased vs wounded (injured) averages and location factors gives a weighted risk of less than 1% likely to encounter a “mass shooting”.

  10. They frame it that way because the definition of what is considered a ‘mass shooting’ change with the narrative and they know their viewers won’t look any deeper.

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