Bill Cawthon, Second Amendment Society of Texas:
There are two databases we use for reference when researching mass shootings: Mother Jones Mass Shooting Database which covers incidents from 1982 to today; the Violence Prevention Project’s Mass Shooter Database, which covers from 1966 to today and which we have extended to 1949.
The Mother Jones list includes 151 incidents, the Violence Project list covers 201 incidents.
Unlike gun control fans and the media, we ignore the numbers reported by the Gun Violence Archive. The GVA uses such loose standards in even defining a mass shooting, their data is worthless.
Contrary to both the Mother Jones’ and the Violence Project’s beliefs, there is no real evidence gun control laws have any impact on mass shootings.
Universal background check laws look especially stupid when carefully examined. According to the Violence Project’s data, 435 firearms have been used in mass shootings since the Camden, New Jersey incident in September 1949. Of that number, only 282 had a known source. Looking at that group, slightly more than 50% were acquired through an licensed gun dealer or pawn shop. [Note: Federal background checks weren’t required until February 1994.]
Another 29% were the result of private transfers, including gun shows, friends, family, etc.
Only 21% of the guns were obtained through illegal means, including theft, straw purchases, inadvertent erroneous transfers due to failures in the NICS operation, and other sources.
Fans of background checks point to NICS denials and claims those people were prevented from getting a gun, which is laughable. A Department of Justice study of 256,000 inmates in federal and state prisons showed only a small percentage of crime guns come through gun shops and pawn shops and an even smaller percentage come from gun shows or flea markets.
Mass shootings have been referenced as a reason for Colorado’s recent ban as well as some particularly ignorant court decisions. I have never heard any ban fans reference the actual numbers of evil back rifles (EBRs) used in mass shootings but according to the latest estimates of the number of them in circulation, only three ten-thousandths of one percent of the the total have been used in mass shootings since the Colt AR-15 Sporter debuted in the fourth quarter of 1963.
There is no rational reason for banning them. In fact, it’s ludicrous. Yes, the incidents are tragic but we already know from a decade’s experience with the 1994-2004 federal ban that gun laws aren’t the answer.
This information is freely available and anyone with a basic understanding of arithmetic will come up with the same results we did.
