Colion Noir Compares the FBI's Armed-Citizen Numbers With John Lott's

Colion Noir digs into the FBI's active shooter numbers after an armed dad stopped a school shooter in Bend, Oregon, and the AP described such stops as rare. Noir says the FBI itself admits to John Stossel its data only offers a "baseline understanding," not a full count, yet that caveat never makes it into the press releases newsrooms quote.

Key points

• The FBI's count: from 2014 through 2025, the FBI logged 408 active shooter incidents and credited armed citizens with stopping just 16, or 3.9%.
• Dr. John Lott's recount: the Crime Prevention Research Center identified 615 incidents over the same span and found armed citizens stopped 225 of them, 36.6%.
• Outside gun-free zones: Lott's group estimates armed civilians stopped 56.3% of attacks over the past five years in places where carrying was legal.
• Disputed cases: when pushed on specific incidents, the FBI's data source only contested two, including a Tennessee domestic shooting Lott says matches 14 other cases already in FBI data.
• Transparency gap: Lott's team publishes every case and source for review; Noir argues the FBI should do the same.

Quick take

Noir frames this as a numbers fight with real stakes, arguing that undercounting armed citizens makes it easier to dismiss them as a myth. Worth watching if you want the sourcing behind that 3.9% stat before repeating it.

Watch the full video: Colion Noir