FBI Data Downplays How Often Armed Civilians Stop Mass Shooters, Report Shows

The FBI has vastly undercounted cases of armed civilians thwarting mass shootings in the U.S. in its public crime data, according to new research.

Civilians with guns stopped at least 36% of active shooters from 2014 to 2024 despite the FBI recording the figure as 3.7%, the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) said in a report released Friday. Legacymedia and fact-checkers previously used the FBI’s data to drive the narrative that such cases are rare, minimizing the public benefits of legal gun access.

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FBI Data Undercounts Armed Civilians Stopping Would-Be Mass Shooters, Report Finds by Hudson Crozier

Armed civilians stopped at least 47.8% — nearly half — of reported active shooters in the U.S. in 2024, whereas the FBI recorded zero, the CPRC found, citing local news coverage for each case. Most of these incidents were overlooked by the FBI, while others were misclassified, the group reported. Some included cases in which civilians with firearms caused would-be active shooters to flee the scene, but the FBI only credited law enforcement for stopping the suspects because police later arrested them, according to the research, which was