Our research is available here. After the Newsweek was published on Friday, November 21, 2025, the reporter updated her article on Monday, November 24, 2025.
Devin Hughes, founder and president of gun violence research organization GVPedia, told Newsweek, “The paper is fraud, which I do not use lightly.”
Hughes alleges that the study defines active shooter incidents differently from the FBI.
“Lott’s study then only applies that new definition to cases in which there was a defensive gun use, while deliberately excluding thousands of cases in which a defensive gun use did not occur,” Hughes said. “This deceptive tactic allows Lott to claim that the percentage of active shooter cases stopped by a defensive gun use is vastly higher than it is in reality, regardless of what definition of an active shooting one uses. The end result is blatant statistical malpractice.”
Lott told Newsweek that the FBI’s definition excludes gang violence, drug related violence and shootings in relation to another criminal act.
“The FBI defines active shooter incidents as those in which an individual actively kills or attempts to kill people in a populated, public area,” Lott said. “But it does not include those it deems related to other criminal activity, such as a robbery or fighting over drug turf. Over the period from 2014 to 2024, the FBI includes 14 cases where a legally armed civilian used a gun to stop an active shooting attack. We think that the number is 199. We thought it was useful to fill in the rest of these cases using the exact same definition that excluded ‘gang violence,’ ‘drug related violence,’ and ‘shootings in relation to another criminal act’ to see how police and civilians compared in dealing with these attacks.”
Jenna Sundel, “Study Praising Armed Civilians Sparks Criticism,” Newsweek, November 24, 2025.
Dr. Lott’s response to this point included this.
While I appreciate you making some updates to your article, you make it sound as if it is just our word versus Hughes when you simply write “Lott told Newsweek that the FBI’s definition excludes gang violence, drug related violence, and shootings in relation to another criminal act.” But I have provided you links to the FBI active shooting reports where you can confirm for yourself that the FBI does in fact exclude these types of crimes (see the fourth paragraph on page five in their first report and page 2 in their latest report. It is something that they list out in EVERY report in between these two reports).
In an earlier email, Lott noted the following.
A radio talk show host sent a copy of your article today that apparently appeared on Friday (https://www.newsweek.com/study-praising-armed-civilians-sparks-criticism-11081196). Now that I have seen the piece, I will provide more than my original responses to you on Friday and Saturday. It is disappointing that you didn’t really give us any time to respond to your request for comments.
If you read our paper or actually read the FBI active shooter reports, you know that despite Hughes’ claims to the contrary, the FBI definition excluded “gang violence,” “drug related violence,” and “shootings in relation to another criminal act.” The FBI defines active shooter incidents as those in which an individual actively kills or attempts to kill people in a populated, public area. But it does not include those it deems related to other criminal activity, such as a robbery or fighting over drug turf. Over the period from 2014 to 2024, the FBI includes 14 cases where a legally armed civilian used a gun to stop an active shooting attack. We think that the number is 199. We thought it was useful to fill in the rest of these cases using the exact same definition that excluded “gang violence,” “drug related violence,” and “shootings in relation to another criminal act” to see how police and civilians compared in dealing with these attacks.
.Dan Webster, a professor at the Bloomberg School of Public Health, told Newsweek this:
Daniel Webster, a professor of health policy and management with the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions, told Newsweek that the researchers support their findings with flawed data.
“Lott has promoted – with flawed data and logic – the idea that the USA has so many mass shootings because we have too many gun-free zones. The solution to Lott’s view of the problem is that we need more people walking around with guns are the ready to jump in and take effective and heroic efforts to save the day,” Webster said. “The reality is that such incidents are incredibly rare even though we live in a country with more guns than people and more armed civilians walking and driving around than has ever been the case.”
Jenna Sundel, “Study Praising Armed Civilians Sparks Criticism,” Newsweek, November 24, 2025.
In response to the quote from Webster, Dr. Lott wrote the reporter this information, and she used the last two sentences in the first paragraph.
As to Dan Webster’s comment, 92% of mass public shootings occur in places where guns are banned, and we have pointed out how time after time these mass public shooters explicitly explain why they are drawn to these gun-free zones (https://www.wsj.com/opinion/another-mass-shooting-in-a-gun-free-zone-55e29255?st=AECokA&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink and https://crimeresearch.org/2025/08/vince-vaughn-explains-the-obvious-how-mass-killers-pick-out-venues-where-their-victims-are-sitting-ducks/). I don’t know how people can read these diaries and manifestos and not be struck by the explicit planning to target those cites. In any case, the point of the research was to see whether Webster is correct that armed citizens in places that they are allowed to carry is helpful in stopping these attacks. I note he doesn’t address our point that officers in uniform have real tactical disadvantages in stopping attacks. Attackers who see an officer present in a place they are planning to attack can either wait for the officer to leave the area, move on to another target themselves, or kill the officer. Webster can assert that we are wrong, but to my knowledge our paper is the very first one to actually empirically study that issue.
BTW, I have an Amicus brief that was written in conjunction with the California Peace Officers Research Association and the California Association of Highway Patrolmen that deals with the gun-free zone issue that will have oral arguments before the Supreme Court in January. You might find it interesting that these two California police officers associations agree with me (https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=5784482). BTW, the largest association of police in the US surveyed its members and found that 86% of officers thought that getting rid of gun-free zones would either reduce or eliminate causulties from mass public shootings (https://crimeresearch.org/2015/09/police-support-for-getting-rid-of-gun-free-zones/).
Newsweek went on to cite an article in the New Yorker magazine.
A 2022 article in The New Yorker stated that “Lott’s findings and methods have generated scathing criticism from prominent academics, who have questioned his veracity and exposed flaws in his work. But the critiques have not diminished his stature. Instead, they have fed the conspiracy-oriented mentality of the gun-rights movement. In the eyes of its adherents, and in the messaging of the gun lobby and trade groups, attempts to discredit Lott are really attempts to suppress the truth.” . . .
Jenna Sundel, “Study Praising Armed Civilians Sparks Criticism,” Newsweek, November 24, 2025.
Lott responded this way.
You uncritically cite The New Yorker article by Michael Spies, who is an employee of Michael Bloomberg’s The Trace, and it is my understanding he was paid $150,000 by The Trace to spend a year investigating me for the piece. The Trace published the piece separately on its own website. If Newsweek wants to cite an employee working for a Michael Bloomberg gun control group as an objective source, that is your choice, but it still might be useful for your readers to at least know who his paying his salary.
While Spies ignored the information that I provided him, I pointed out that the largest survey of academics who had published peer-reviewed research on guns found that criminologists and economists agreed with these points on gun-free zones, but that public health researchers disagreed. I also pointed out that the vast majority of of peer-reviewed empirical research agreed with my findings, but Spies only selectively quoted people who disagreed.
BTW, I have an Amicus brief that was written in conjunction with the California Peace Officers Research Association and the California Association of Highway Patrolmen that deals with the gun-free zone issue that will have oral arguments before the Supreme Court in January. You might find it interesting that these two California police officers associations agree with me. BTW, the largest association of police in the US surveyed its members and found that 86% of officers thought that getting rid of gun-free zones would either reduce or eliminate causulties from mass public shootings. . . .
Lott also made a couple other points.
Many gun control groups want to put out a lower percentage, but they accomplished that by including drug gang fights and attacks inside residences (cases that as noted above are excluded from the FBI’s definition). If they want to adopt a different definition than the FBI’s, they can explain why the FBI’s logic for excluding those cases is wrong. I think that it is pretty clear that the causes and solutions for gang fights over drug turf while important are very different than the attacks where someone goes into a mall or school with the sole desire to kill others.
You reached out to us after 3 PM ET on Friday, and as I noted I was traveling. Given that this piece was published two hours later on Friday evening, if you were really interested in a response, it isn’t obvious why you couldn’t have given us a little more time to respond. As it is, I did respond later that evening and again on Saturday.