Review of CPRC Count of Armed Citizens who Stop Active Shooter Attacks

On July 30, 2023, the Crime Prevention Research Center (CRPC) published a paper showing massive errors in the FBI Active Shooter Reports from 2014 through 2023.  This correspondent has been following the issue for the entire period. The first viral post this correspondent wrote about the subject of armed civilians stopping mass murders was published on December 15, 2012. It had 16 incidents documented from October, 1997 to 11 December 2012. All of these incidents occurred before the FBI started collecting data on “active shooter” incidents.

The CRPC paper, with a solid institution and organization behind it, does a better job than a single blogger did at the end of 2012.  The CRPC shows how badly the FBI has bungled the job of tracking these events. The first FBI report was published ten months later, during the Obama administration, in September of 2013. The CRPC covered the problems with the FBI report in October of 2014. 

The reason for the difference in the numbers reported by the FBI is not immediately obvious. It happens because of the way the FBI structured its approach to finding the incidents and deciding if they qualify for inclusion. 

According to the FBI, the FBI, under the  Obama administration, started to report “active shooter incidents”, as part of the Investigative Assistance for Violent Crimes Act of 2012, 28 USC 530C(b)(1)(M)(1). The research for the report appears to have been done at Texas State University, with overview by FBI Agent Katherine W. Schweit. Later reports were also contracted to and researched at Texas State University. The FBI definition of an “active shooter is stated below: 

From the 2016-17 report 

“The FBI defines an active shooter as one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area. Implicit in this definition is the shooter’s use of one or more firearms.” 

From the 2013 Study: 

 ”Incidents identified in this study do not encompass all gun-related situations; therefore caution should be taken when using this information without placing it in context. Specifically, shootings that resulted from gang or drug violence—pervasive, long-tracked, criminal acts that could also affect the public—were not included in this study.” 

Those definitions, together, create a system which is inherently subjective. It is a system which depends on a great deal of judgement on the part of the people grading the incidents. John Lott investigated the process, asking for answers from the FBI as to why certain incidents were included while others were excluded. Here is an answer he received from and FBI administrator. From email to John Lott in response to queries about incidents, by Shayne E. Buchwald of the FBI, dated May 16, 2018 7:36 AM: 

“The selection of cases for inclusion in these reports is the result of a consensus vote of analysts and Law Enforcement professionals using the methodology stated in the original 2013 study. In some cases, a level of interpretation is required with which all may not agree. The FBI notes your differing opinion in the stated cases.”

This correspondent’s understanding of consensus voting depends on the specific method used. In a small group, it usually means everyone agrees with the decision. If such is the approach, any member of the group has veto power over whether an incident is included. Any member may exclude incidents, but all members are necessary to include any incident.  Such a system minimizes the number of incidents which are included. 

The CRPC article gives example after example of incidents which were excluded, while others which are very similar are included. There is a high correlation with incidents stopped by armed “civilians” and incidents which are excluded. Incidents are also mislabeled. Volunteer church security action was labeled as defense by a “security guard”, instead of an armed civilian, even though the defender was an unpaid volunteer, in the West Freeway Church incident. 

The CRPC shows a total of 515 active shooter incidents which they believe qualify for the FBI definition. This is 165 more incidents than the incidents judged to meet the definition by the FBI. The FBI shows only 14 incidents where “active shooters” were stopped by defensive gun use. The CRPC shows 180 incidents stopped by defensive gun uses, or 166 more than the FBI. 

Because of the subjective nature of finding and including incidents, and because of the nature of “consensus voting”, the FBI can justify its selection of some incidents and its exclusion of others. The CRPC report shows how subjective and exclusionary this process is.  The selection of incidents to be voted on by consensus is subjective.  The grading of chosen incidents is subjective. It is not surprising those who value armed defense of self and others grade the incidents differently. 

Analysis:  

The FBI was created in the Progressive ideological era, where government was seen as the solution, and never as the problem. Progressive ideology believes restrains on government are bad. The earliest report of  justified homicide statistics found by this correspondent by the FBI is dated 1976. Clayton Cramer does an excellent job of showing how the FBI undercounts justifiable homicides by a factor of 5-1 in his 2016 academic paper. Only 15%-20% of justified homicide are recorded in the FBI Uniform Crime Reports. This correspondent wrote about the undercount problem in 2015.  The undercount of justified homicides is part of the institutional bias at the FBI. The undercount of armed defenders who stop active shooters appears to be an extension of such a bias. It is not hard to understand how people who believe the population is unable to govern itself, are reluctant to admit armed civilians are a significant part of an effective defense against mass murder.  It is not hard to understand how people with such an ideology are subject to confirmation bias by excluding such incidents from their reporting. 

Whether such bias is justified can be determined by each reader. Go to the CRPC web site and look at the incidents which were excluded from the FBI report. Draw your own conclusions. 

The problem is larger than the FBI. The old media had/has a progressive ideological bias which minimizes coverage of such incidents. This correspondent had a naive belief that when a mass murder was stopped by an armed defender, it would be national news, a “man bites dog” story. It would go “viral”. The opposite happened in 1999 when a gun store employee stopped a mass murder by shooting the would be murderer. The story was covered locally. With the internet in its infancy in 1999, the story quickly disappeared.  You can find an excerpt on freerepublic, where it was placed in 2012. How quickly the story disappeared convinced this correspondent to start keeping track. 

Today the CRPC does a better job. 

©2026 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice and link are included.

Gun Watch  

Source: http://gunwatch.blogspot.com/2026/05/review-of-cprc-count-of-armed-citizens.html