Fear Inc.: FBI tweaks figures on mass shootings to show phony increase

The US Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) misinterpreted statistics on gun shooting in the country, which could be President Barack Obama's attempt to gain support for stricter gun control regulations, the president of the Crime Prevention Research Center (CPRC) told Sputnik on Wednesday.

Obama's gun-control proposals presuppose boosting background check procedures, the prohibition of military-style assault weapons, additional training for law enforcers and maximizing efforts to prosecute gun crimes, among other steps.

"I think that it was an attempt probably by President Obama to help elect Democrats who supported more gun control," John R. Lott said.

Exaggerating the increase in mass shootings in the United States aims to alarm people and increase general panic in the country, Lott added.

In October 2014, Lott released a paper analyzing the September FBI report on the number of active shooter attacks and deaths in the country. In its report, the FBI said that the statistics had increased by an annual rate of some 16 percent since 2000.

In October, Lott said in his publication that the annual growth rate of homicides was, in fact, significantly lower. According to Lott, if biases and errors were corrected in the FBI report, the data would reveal that the annual growth rate had been cut in half.

The CPRC information showed that the FBI put out incorrect numbers on public shootings in the United States not long before the general elections in November 2014. Lott said that the information published by the FBI was misinterpreted to overstate the incidents and risks of mass shootings in the country.