Claims misrepresent mass shootings in ‘gun-free zones’

A sign on the corner of 48th Street and 6th Avenue announces Times Square as a gun free zone, Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022, in New York. The Associated Press on Wednesday, March 29, 2023 reported on misleading social media posts claiming more than 90% of all mass shootings have happened in so-called “gun-free zones.” (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

A sign on the corner of 48th Street and 6th Avenue announces Times Square as a gun free zone, Tuesday, Oct. 11, 2022, in New York. The Associated Press on Wednesday, March 29, 2023 reported on misleading social media posts claiming more than 90% of all mass shootings have happened in so-called “gun-free zones.” (AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)

CLAIM: More than 90% of all mass shootings have happened in so-called “gun-free zones.”

AP’S ASSESSMENT: Missing context. The oft-cited figure comes from a study by a gun rights advocacy group that gun violence experts say is flawed. They say the study draws from federal data on “active shooter” incidents, which is not the same as a mass shooting. It also excludes gang-related incidents, yet includes military bases and other locations that aren’t arguably “gun free.” There is no definitive data on how many “mass shootings” occur in “gun-free” zones, because there is no consensus on how to define either term, experts said.

THE FACTS: In the wake of Monday’s shooting a Christian school in Nashville, social media users are sharing a post that claims nearly all mass shootings happen in designated “gun-free zones” where firearms are expressly prohibited, such as schools.

“The facts: 92-98% of mass shootings happen in gun-free zones. Today was yet another example of that,” reads the Instagram post. “Great job on the Gun Free School Zones Act, Clinton and Biden.”

The post refers to a 1990 law that made it illegal for anyone to possess a firearm in a school zone unless part of a school program or by a law enforcement officer. It was signed into law when former Democratic President Bill Clinton was in office and current President Joe Biden served as a Democratic U.S. senator from Delaware.

The figure comes from a study by gun rights advocacy group the Crime Prevention Research Center. The group in a 2018 report asserted that 94% of mass public shootings since 1950 happened in gun-free zones. The group’s president has pointed to the figures to argue that gun-free zones “invite” mass shootings.

But gun violence experts caution that the study and the conclusions drawn from it are flawed.

For one thing, looking at gun violence data from 1950 to 1990 is “irrelevant” because many states banned or heavily restricted concealed firearms during that period, according to Daniel Webster, a scholar at Johns Hopkins University’s Center for Gun Violence Solutions in Baltimore, Maryland.

That, he argued, would make almost any public mass shooting during those years as having taken place in a gun-free zone.

Webster and other experts also argued that the center’s study wrongly classifies places where armed officers are stationed -- such as military bases -- as gun-free zones. It also excluded gang-related shootings and other mass shootings related to other major crimes.

“That defies logic,” Webster wrote in an email, referring to military bases and other secure locations. “Not only are guns allowed in such places, often they are 100% certain to have someone armed, trained, paid, and under orders to protect against public mass shootings.”

What’s more, the center’s study relies on the FBI’s data on “active shooter” incidents, which isn’t the same as a mass shooting, said Jaclyn Schildkraut, executive director of the Rockefeller Institute of Government’s Regional Gun Violence Research Consortium in Albany, New York.

“You could have 0 fatalities and injuries and be included in that data,” she wrote in an email. “Not every active shooter event goes on to become a mass shooting either.”

In response, John Lott, president of the Crime Prevention Research Center, argued that the exclusion of shootings stemming from gang violence or other crimes is appropriate.

In an email Wednesday, he said the “causes and solutions” of those violent incidents are “dramatically different” from those of typical mass shootings, where the aim is generally to kill or injure as many people as possible.

Lott also argues that classifying military bases and other locations where armed officers or security are present is also appropriate.

“What you need to understand is that Fort Hood is no different than a city where only the military police are allowed to carry guns,” he wrote, referring to the Texas army base that has been the site of mass shootingsin 2009 and 2014. “The attackers at Fort Hood knew that.”

And if the earliest decades of the center’s study are excluded, Lott said his research still shows that 87% of mass shootings occurred in gun-free zones from 1990 through this Monday.

Researchers say competing studies pushed by gun control advocacy groups also have their shortcomings.

A study by Everytown for Gun Safety, for example, found that between 2009 and 2016, just 10% of mass shootings took place in gun-free zones. Most mass shootings, the group found, occur in private residences that are not considered gun-free zones.

But Everytown defines a mass shooting as one in which four or more people, excluding the shooter, died. That likely underestimates the true number of mass shootings since it does not account for incidents in which many are badly injured but few died, according to experts

Part of the problem is there isn’t a generally accepted definition of what constitutes a “mass shooting,” Schildkraut and others say. There’s also no good way to verify whether every single location analyzed in a study is in fact “gun-free,” as the designation is only federally mandated on schools, she and others said.

For example, experts noted that Lott’s report counts a 2015 shooting at Umpqua Community College in Oregon as happening at a gun-free zone, even though the college allowed people with a concealed carry permit to bring firearms on campus. Lott, in a blog post, has disputed those assertions.

“In short, I would say that the 10% number is too low, but the 98% statistic is too high in terms of the percentage of mass shootings that occur in legally designated gun-free zones,” Schildkraut wrote in an email.

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This is part of AP’s effort to address widely shared misinformation, including work with outside companies and organizations to add factual context to misleading content that is circulating online. Learn more about fact-checking at AP.