I’ve heard it said that Donald Trump is the most pro-2A President that we’ve had in our lifetime, and I’m generally inclined to agree.
Now, that’s not to say that I wouldn’t like for Trump to be even more pro-2A, but he’s certainly better than any of the Democrat Presidents that we’ve had in the last 50 years and, as far as I can remember, than any of the other Republican Presidents, too.
But just because the White House (or the majority in Congress, or the Supreme Court…) is pro-2A, that doesn’t mean that the bureaucrats in different departments are pro-2A and that they aren’t going to try to give a negative and inaccurate spin on firearms issues.
For example, under Trump, the FBI’s active shooter reports are still wrong. From the Crime Prevention Research Center:
The FBI reports that armed citizens only stopped 16 of the 408 active shooter incidents it identified for the period 2014-2025. The FBI defines active shooter incidents as those in which an individual actively kills or attempts to kill people in a populated, public area. But it does not include those it deems related to other criminal activity, such as a robbery or fighting over drug turf. We will use that exact same definition in putting our list together […].
An analysis by the CPRC identified a total of 615 active shooter incidents during that period and found that an armed citizen stopped 225. A previous report looked at only instances when armed civilians stopped what likely would have been mass public shootings. There were another 35 cases that we didn’t include where armed civilians stopped armed attacks, but the suspect didn’t fire his gun. Those cases are excluded from our calculations, though it could be argued that a civilian also stopped what likely could have been an active shooting event.
The FBI reported that armed citizens thwarted 3.9% of active shooter incidents, while the CPRC found 36.6%. But new research indicates that because armed civilians stop attacks earlier and leave fewer victims, news-based files should under-count those stops relative to the bloody cases that run on. That is a reason the 36.6% figure is likely still be too low, not a reason it is inflated by media chasing hero stories.
And it’s not just the FBI who is undercounting defensive gun use. The CDC is, too.
Here’s the question to ask yourself: Why are they undercounting incidents of defensive gun use and when a civilian stops an active shooter?
Now, sure, it could be attributed to simple error on the part of a person who isn’t detail oriented, or it could be because someone is simply a follow-the-rules-even-if-they-don’t-make-sense kind of person when they record those numbers (that kind of person is only concerned with the literal answer to the question of “Does that incident meet the criteria to show up in this figure” instead of being the kind of person who thinks more deeply about it to consider why so many other incidents didn’t have the kill count to add up to being included on a list of mass shootings).
I don’t doubt that there is some truth to both of those possibilities, but I also think that there is a large contingent of legacy bureaucrats who intentionally use their positions as federal employees to push politically liberal and left leaning policy positions, at least through how they’re implemented.
Someone like that would have no problem emphasizing statistics taken out of context to push their preferred agenda.
Could I be wrong about a contingent like that working in the federal bureaucracy? Yes. But I don’t think that I am. And the fact that many Americans still refer to President Trump’s “drain the swamp” intentions with the hope that he can and will drain the swamp seems to imply that I’m not alone in my thinking about that.
Those bureaucrats need to go. Taxpayer money shouldn’t ever be used to push any agenda that goes against the Constitution. Period.