While Democrats are pushing gun control as a solution to the San Bernardino terror attack–and to other mass shootings that were criminally motivated–Mother Jones reports over 80% of mass shooters between 1982 and 2015 bought their guns “legally.”
That means they complied with gun control rather than avoided it, and acquired their guns from retail outlets in a manner prescribed by law. After 1998, this would have meant going through a background check for their guns.
NBC News reported Mother Jones findings, which showed a total of 73 mass shootings between 1982 and 2015. Of those, the manner in which the gun was obtained is known in 60 cases. Of those 60, the gun was obtained “legally” in 49 instances. Breitbart News previously reported it is harder to name a mass shooter who did not go through a background check for his or her weapon than it is to name one who did, and Mother Jones‘ figures on gun control compliance show why this is so.
It should also be noted that Mother Jones recently demonstrated how the left exaggerates the number of mass shootings in America when making their gun control push. For example, Breitbart News previously reported that actress Rose McGowan claimed “355 mass shootings” in America in 2015 alone in her rant against guns following the San Bernardino attack. But Mother Jones shows that the actual number of mass shootings in America during 2015 has been four.
The left is able to elevate the number of mass shootings by relying on outlets like Shooting Tracker, which don’t stick to the FBI threshold requiring four fatalities in one shooting incident before an attack can be labeled a mass shooting. Instead, Shooting Tracker counts a mass shooting every time four people or more are wounded in a shooting incident or series of incidents. Of course this results in counting gang violence, drive-by shootings, and other such incidents as “mass shootings.”
Follow AWR Hawkins on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.