Lott: Mass shootings aren’t a uniquely American problem

The United States’s prevalence of mass shootings don’t outweigh those recorded around the world, according to new research from Dr. John Lott.

The economist — an outcast within his field over his studies supporting more relaxed gun laws — said a recent academic paper blaming American gun culture for its high rate of mass shootings “is one of the biggest hoaxes of this century.”

“The claim that the US is unique in terms of mass public shootings motivates much of the gun control debate these days,” he said. “It is a hoax.”

The paper in question — a 2016 study by University of Alabama Criminology Professor Adam Lankford — found from 1966 through 2012, Americans perpetrated 31 percent of all mass shootings, despite only accounting for less than 5 percent of the world’s population