John Lott -- "FBI's Bogus Report on Mass Shootings"

[Sam1911]

I have not read John Lott's "FBI's Bogus Report on Mass Shootings".
I did spend a little time on the FBI's A Study of Active Shooter Incidents in the United States Between 2000 and 2013.

Ok. The discussion here is over Mr. Lott's analysis of that report, and his claims that the FBI published findings based on inappropriate and/or misrepresented data.

You said when you read the FBI report nothing stood out to you as being bogus. Did that mean you found their information to be correctly interpreted and represented -- thus Mr. Lott is wrong?

Or were you just lamenting that you didn't pick up on the errors and misrepresentations yourself when you read it?

 

[Haxby]

Well, I wasn't lamenting anything.
Why so much attention to this article, when the actual study is available?

 

[Sam1911]

Ok...not lamenting, then. (This is somewhat like pulling teeth.) WHAT WAS YOUR POINT?

You obviously wanted us to know something. You said you, 'don't remember anything standing out as bogus." I'm asking you if YOU have any further assessment on the numbers the FBI used beyond the fact that you didn't notice reasons for disagreeing with their findings? Maybe I would not have noticed anything standing out as bogus either. But I'm not a statistician or analyst trained and practiced in reviewing such reports to look for flaws in analysis or reporting. Are you?

Why so much attention to this article, when the actual study is available?

Because Mr. Lott is a known quantity and a respected commentator on statistics relating to firearms use in society and has more experience in observing and dissecting statistical data -- and the purported findings based on that data -- than most of us here.

When someone's doctor says, "the patient appears to have cancer," I don't reply, "why does anyone pay attention to this doctor's opinion? The pathology report and analysis of the blood chemistry is right here for anyone to analyze!" 99 out of 100 people reading the report won't know what they're looking at or why any one thing might be significant.

So...if you've read over the report and made your own analysis of what data was included and what excluded and what emphasized and what ignored, etc. -- WHAT DO YOU THINK WE SHOULD BELIEVE ABOUT IT?

In simpler words:

Do you think Mr. Lott's analysis is correct or incorrect? And why?

 

[Haxby]

I believe the study to be factual, and presented in a professional manner.
I find the language from Lott's article, as quoted in the original post, to be slanted, inflammatory, and bogus.

 

[Sam1911]

Would you read Mr. Lott's report, then, and determine for yourself (not based on the inflammatory language of a news article) whether Mr. Lott has made a correct analysis of the findings or not?

As I'm sure you'd agree, if you base your opinion of the veracity of his assertion entirely on the style of language the media reported, that opinion wouldn't have any worth whatsoever.

Equally, I'm sure you'd agree that unless someone was trained or practiced in analyzing this sort of data (as I assume you are not, as I am not) it would be wholly unreasonable to expect yourself to have identified flaws like he's pointing out. So your reading would hardly have been able to notice "anything standing out as being bogus."

After all, it would be in the very nature of such errors NOT to stand out as bogus.

 

[Warp]

I believe the study to be factual, and presented in a professional manner.

Would you please list (or link to a list of) the 160 "mass" or "active" shootings in public places from 2000-2013? Remember that to qualify it needs a minimum of 3 or 4 people murdered.

As you have clearly looked at the data yourself and verified the study as factual this should not be a problem.

 

[Sol]

I see what they did.

They started at a point where there were a low amount of mass shootings. Therefore skewing the later years significantly. They also ommited some cases.

For example, if you wanted to do some statistics on say...deaths in Europe. With no given restrictions on timeline, one could start their spreadsheet with the year 1946, touting what a great society Europe has, or you could start your timeline at 1936, just ten measly years earlier and really blow things out of the water.

 

[Deltaboy1984]

The FBI went to pot once Hoover left.