Forbes Claims over 400 ‘Mass Shootings’ in 2023 Using Misleading Data

Forbes pointed to misleading data Sunday and claimed there had been over 400 “mass shootings” in the United States so far in 2023.

They labeled their report “breaking” news and based it on misleading data from the Gun Violence Archive (GVA).

Forbes claims there have been 402 “mass shootings” in the U.S. thus far in 2023, suggesting there were seven such incidents that occurred over the weekend alone.

On July 4, 2023, Breitbart News pointed out the outlet was relying on the misleading GVA data to claim, at that time, over 330 “mass shootings” for the year in the U.S.

Breitbart News noted GVA is a pro-gun-control database which abandoned the long-standing definition of a “mass shooting” as four or more deaths in a single incident by a single gunman and replaced it with  “a minimum of four victims shot, either injured or killed, not including any shooter who may also have been killed or injured in the incident.”

GVA’s new definition allows drive-by shootings, targeted gang attacks, and other non-mass shootings to be counted as “mass shootings,” thereby inflating the number of reported incidents.

For example, in Forbes’ July 23, 2023, they claim the most recent “mass shootings” as an incident in a Houston bar where five people were injured and a shooting incident in Seattle in which four were injured during an “illegal auto race.” There were no fatalities recorded.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.