A paper on mass public shootings by Adam Lankford (2016) has received massive national and international media attention, getting coverage in the New York Times, the Wall Street Journal, plus hundreds of other news outlets spanning at least 35 different countries. Lankford’s claim was that over the 47 years from 1966 to 2012, an enormous amount of the world’s mass public shooters -- 31% -- occurred in the United States. Lankford attributed this to America’s gun ownership.
Lankford claims to have “complete” data on such shooters in 171 countries. However, because he has neither identified the cases nor their location nor even a complete description on how he put the cases together, it is impossible to replicate his findings.
Emphasis mine. This is not how you do science. This is not how you publish information. This is how you build a crack-pot theory to justify your political beliefs.
And of course, it's not limited to just this political hack. Less than 40% of published studies can be replicated. As the world of science gets more and more politicized, it's no shock that it gets shoddier and shoddier as so-called "scientists" push to confirm their bias rather than find the truth.
When you hear people blather on about how the US leads the world in mass shootings, point out to them that they are wrong, and they're not doing themselves any favors.
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