News Media Distort Statistics on US Firearms Ownership and Mass Shootings, Gun Expert Lott Says

In a discussion that gun rights activist John Lott Jr. had with an ABC News producer for a 2014 documentary special about the risks of having firearms in the home, the producer cited a gun ownership statistic that Lott knew to be wrong. 

The producer told him that gun ownership had been falling in the United States, but ABC News’ own survey, conducted with The Washington Post, showed that gun ownership actually had held steady.

“Your own survey doesn’t show [that gun ownership is dropping],” he said he told the producer of the program, “Young Guns: A Diane Sawyer Special.”