USA – -(AmmoLand.com)- When most Americans 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.
Yet for one small but influential nonprofit, the Gun Violence Archive, anytime four or more people are killed or even slightly wounded with a firearm, it’s labeled a mass shooting, and politicians, gun control advocates, and the mainstream media treat their reports as if they’re gospel.
The Gun Violence Archive, or GVA, 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.
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 definition.
While the GVA collects and publishes several different types of shooting data – mass murders, number of children and teens killed or injured, officer-involved shootings, defenses gun usages and more – it is their inflated mass shooting numbers that are cited most often by the mainstream media, given its penchant for sensational headlines.
In an interview with the Second Amendment Foundation’s Investigative Journalism Project on Tuesday, Bryant defended his broader definition and the higher body count it yields.
“It doesn’t parse,” he said. “It gives an accurate picture of the number of times more than four people were shot, whether in a drive-by or a shooting at a rap concert or a country music concert.”
If his higher numbers are misleading the public or being misinterpreted by journalists, it’s not his fault, Bryant claimed. He believes his numbers are fair.
“I do, but I think it’s also up to the journalist and the reader to have a better understanding of what the data says. When a journalist uses the mass-shooting numbers as their lead, they’re not looking at the whole situation.”
That the mainstream media, elected officials, and what he calls the “gun violence prevention” community, or GVP, are using his statistics is not in question.
The Biden/Harris administration has cited Bryant’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 now use GVA’s broad definition when reporting about mass shootings.
Click the link to read the whole article: The Gun Violence Archive
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