By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Recently-updated research on mass shootings by the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) appears to explode a major—and evidently erroneous—claim by the gun prohibition lobby to justify their crusade to ban so-called “assault weapons.”
Turns out the majority of mass shootings in public places are committed with handguns, not semi-auto rifles, which have been mis-labeled “weapons of war” by anti-gun activists and Democrat politicians.
According to CPRC research, 56.4 percent of mass shootings involved handguns only, while 14.9 percent involved rifles only. Another 12.8 percent involved shooters armed with both handguns and rifles.
Shotguns were used exclusively in only 3.2 percent of mass shootings, such as the one at the Washington, D.C. Navy Yard in 2013. Killers used a combination of handguns and shotguns in 9.6 percent of mass shootings, the data says, and a tiny number—3.2 percent—were armed with all three types of firearms.
Of equal if not greater importance, CPRC research reveals that of all mass shootings from 1950 through March 27 of this year, only 6 percent occurred in places that were not identified as gun-free zones, while 94 percent did happen in “gun-free” zones.
CPRC further refined its data to show that between 1998 and March 27 of this year, 16 percent of mass shootings occurred in areas not identified as “gun-free,” while 84 percent did happen in such restricted zones. This would include the bank in Louisville where five people were killed earlier this week by a suspect who was an employee of the bank
“Importantly,” CPRC founder John Lott noted in a post quoted in a Fox News report, “the bank’s employee handbook makes it clear that carrying a permitted concealed handgun into the bank is a fireable offense. This employee would have known that the employees were banned from having guns. Why isn’t it newsworthy that time after time these mass murderers pick targets where their victims are defenseless?”
For a long time, anti-gunners and their political allies have pointed fingers at modern semi-auto rifles as the “weapon of choice” of mass shooters, but CPRC’s research makes a strong argument this is not the case at all.
As reported by WSMV News, the shooter in Nashville “planned to attack multiple locations,” according to Police Chief John Drake at a news conference the day after the Covenant School attack.
“It was the only school that was targeted,” Drake told reporters. “There was another location that was mentioned, but because of a threat assessment by the suspect of too much security, they decided not to.”
He told reporters the shooter had “a detailed map of the school and surveillance entry points and how this was going to be carried out on this day.”
