Government agencies have understated how often armed civilians stop attacks; corrected data shows good guys with guns save lives
Source: John R. Lott Jr.. "New Trump Admin Stats Prove Good Guys With Guns Save Lives." October 9, 2026. thefederalist.com
The Gist
The author argues that federal agencies have understated how often armed citizens stop shootings, partly under pressure from gun-control groups. He says his own research group finds armed citizens stop about 37% of active shooter attacks, versus the FBI's roughly 4%, and concludes that the 'good guy with a gun' is real.
Conclusion
Federal agencies (CDC, FBI, DOJ) have downplayed or distorted evidence that armed, law-abiding citizens frequently stop mass-casualty attacks and defend themselves, and corrected data shows that armed civilians do save lives.
Premises
- The CDC's defensive-gun-use (DGU) material was removed in 2022 after gun-control advocates lobbied officials, partly because gun-rights supporters used the estimates to oppose gun-control legislation.
- The CDC's original range of 60,000 to 2.5 million DGUs per year misstated the 2013 National Academies report, which described national survey estimates of roughly 500,000 to over 3 million annually. The Trump administration's correction of the lower bound to 500,000 aligns with the NAS.
- The FBI reports that armed citizens stopped only 16 of 408 active shooter incidents from 2014 to 2025 (about 4%), whereas the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) identified 615 incidents, of which armed citizens stopped 225 (36.6%, and 42.5% over the last five years).
- In places where civilians can legally carry firearms, CPRC estimates armed civilians stopped 52.9% of active-shooter attacks, a rate that would be expected to be lower in gun-free zones where carrying is prohibited.
- The FBI omitted cases of civilian defensive stops while including otherwise identical cases without civilian involvement (17 comparable cases), ignored press inquiries, and did not correct errors the author reported, which makes the pattern hard to dismiss as accidental.
- CPRC lists each case and links its sources, so its numbers can be independently verified.
Assumptions
- CPRC's case identification and classification methods are more accurate and less biased than the FBI's.
- The 2013 NAS range of survey-based DGU estimates (500,000 to 3 million) is reliable, and the survey methodology behind the high estimates is not subject to significant overreporting.
- Incidents in which an armed civilian was present or involved can be treated as incidents the civilian 'stopped' or in which lives were saved.
- The FBI's omissions reflect bias rather than differing definitions, limited information, or resource constraints.
- Removing information at the request of advocacy groups is evidence of political manipulation rather than legitimate scientific caution.
- Evidence that armed civilians stop attacks in some incidents supports the broader claim that more armed civilians would reduce deaths overall.