Month: August 2018

A widely reported study in 2016 claimed that the United States was the leading country in mass shootings by far, but a new report from the Crime Prevention Research Center found that the 2016 study had relied on flawed data collection methods and grossly under-reported mass shootings around the world.

The 2016 study was published by criminologist Adam Lankford. It was covered zealously by the establishment media, including the left-leaning New York Times, CNN and even former President Barack Obama himself.

After the Orlando shooting in late 2015, Obama stated, “(T)he one thing we do know is that we have a pattern now of mass shootings in this country that has no parallel anywhere else in the world,” according to WLS in Chicago.

At the time, the Obama administration used Lankford’s then-unpublished study to justify his claims, according to The Washington Post. That study claimed that the United States had 90 public mass shooters over a period of 47 years compared to the world total of 202.

The establishment media also played its part in propagating Lankford’s now-debunked study.

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For example, CNN published an anti-gun article in October 2017, citing Lankford’s study.

“When it comes to gun massacres, the United States is tragically exceptional: There are more public mass shootings in the United States than in any other country in the world, according to a study published recently,” CNN reported.

The next month, The New York Times also covered the report.

“From 1966 to 2012, 31 percent of the gunmen in mass shootings worldwide were American,” The Times claimed.

They were wrong.

Despite the broad use of Lankford’s report, it received a healthy amount of skepticism from those who bothered to actually read it, such as The Washington Post’s Michelle Ye Hee Lee.

In 2015, Lee reported that academics, such as State University of New York’s Jaclyn Schildkraut and Texas State University researcher H. Jaymi Elsass, found that the United States had a lower rate of mass shooting fatalities compared to Norway, Finland and Switzerland.

A new report by the CPRC found that the U.S. share of mass shootings was actually lower than the global average.

The new study focused on data from 1998 to 2012. Lankford’s study had used data from 1966 to 2012. The issue with Lankford’s data is that it is difficult to discover cases of mass shootings in some parts of the world from the 1960s through the 1980s, according to the New York Post.

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The new study found 15 times more mass public shooters around the world than Lankford did while focusing on only a fraction of the number of years.

CPRC’s study found that the U.S. makes up less than 1.43 percent of mass public shooters contrary to the previously reported 31 percent. The U.S. population is roughly 4.38 percent of the world total.

If Obama and his allies in the establishment media had done their homework, they would have realized the problems with Lankford’s study — or at least found plenty of other academics, as Lee did at The Washington Post, who disagreed with it.

It’s almost like the left-leaning establishment media value their anti-gun agenda over the truth.

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Bill de Blasio, eat your heart out. Once renovations are done in Plainfield, Indiana, of course.

That’s where the franchise owners of a Chick-fil-A — the most hated restaurant of the New York City mayor, along with pretty much everyone else on the left — are paying its workers to do community service while the outlet is undergoing some remodeling.

“The restaurant on E. Main St. is tentatively scheduled to close the last week of September, with the grand reopening projected for November,” WXIN-TV reported earlier this week.

“During construction, Owner Chris Spires says his team members will be deployed throughout the area, serving with non-profit organizations including schools, parks and recreation, and Active Grace, a center that helps the homeless transition back to work.”

The renovations, according to WXIN, will have two lanes for drive-through ordering which will merge into a single lane for payment and pickup of delicious, delicious chicken sandwiches. I swear this isn’t paid content, I’m just that addicted to the stuff.

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“For the past 14 years, I have served the Plainfield community side by side with some amazing Team Members,” Spires told WXIN.

“The support of our amazing community is the reason we are able to expand and renovate our restaurant. We are thrilled to spend some time while we are closed supporting organizations that make Plainfield and the surrounding areas such a wonderful place to live and do business.”

He’s also asking the community for other suggestions as to community service organizations that he can help out during the remodeling.

Of course, Chick-fil-A is an organization founded on Christian values, which is why every restaurant is closed on Sunday.

The fact they also feel that the Bible is the word of God also has liberals portraying them as evil.

So, when they moved into tolerant New York City a few years back, Mayor Bill de Blasio said, “I’m certainly not going to patronize them, and I wouldn’t urge any other New Yorker to patronize them.”

The New Yorker also ran an article called “Chick-fil-A’s Creepy Infiltration of New York City,” because apparently corporations which still have some connection to Christianity are now creepy.

Well, what passes as creepy in New York City is what the rest of America calls downright neighborly.

And, in fairness, from what I’ve heard from friends in the city I used to call home, Gothamites are ignoring the proscription against the restaurant and going for deliciousness.

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However, if you ever needed an object lesson in the difference between Main St. and (the home of) Wall St., there you go.

Our hats are off to you, Mr. Spires. Next time I’m in the neighborhood, I’ll definitely be dropping by your branch. I mean, let’s face it, I’d be doing it anyway, but now I can actually feel that much better about it.

We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.

A story from Tallahassee Reports published Thursday offers details about an FBI investigation into possible corruption in the city of Tallahassee while Andrew Gillum, the Democratic nominee in Florida’s upcoming gubernatorial election, was mayor.

According to the story by Steve Stewart, FBI agents posing as developers made payments to Andrew Gillum’s brother, Marcus Gillum, as part of an effort to show they were seeking business with the city of Tallahassee.

“The payments were said to be in the thousands of dollars per month,” Stewart wrote. “The length of the engagement was not known.”

“Marcus Gillum’s name has surfaced in relation to the federal investigation several times,” he added. “Most notably he was mentioned in public reports as part of a group that vacationed in New York in August 2016. The group included FBI agents posing as developers, Adam Corey, and Mayor Andrew Gillum. Adam Corey, the former campaign treasurer to Mayor Andrew Gillum, is a central figure in the federal investigation and, at the time of the New York Trip, was a city [lobbyist] and a city vendor.”

Stewart’s report caught the attention of Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL), an ally of Gillum’s Republican opponent Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-FL), who took a shot at Gillum late Thursday on Twitter.

“Criminal” can be a noun. https://t.co/OPofLGRPeq https://t.co/pLhFxF06MZ

— Matt Gaetz (@mattgaetz) August 31, 2018

Gillum’s victory on Tuesday was an unexpected one given he had lagged in most of the polling leading up to Tuesday’s contest but outperformed the Real Clear Politics’ polling average for the Democratic gubernatorial primary by a nearly 3-to-1 margin.

Follow Jeff Poor on Twitter @jeff_poor