Think About it -- Lost in the Verbiage

Last year a professional speaker said the school shooting in Nashville (3/27/23, Presbyterian Covenant School) was the first active assailant attack at a faith based school in America. I asked him why he said that when (for example) 5 girls died in the Old Order Amish, Nichol Mines School in 2006.

His answer stunned me. He said, “that wasn’t an active assailant.”

That line of reasoning seems based on the FBI Active Shooter Study published in 2014 entitled, “A Study of Active Shooter Incidents in the United States Between 2000 and 2013.” Many use that study for their theories. 

Those who base their studies on that FBI report should carefully consider all the disclaimers, exclusions and detail descriptions of what is (and is not) included in that study on pages 4 & 5 of the report. Few read that, then throw out the numbers as the “gospel of violence.” 

It isn’t.

While the FBSN doesn’t claim to have written the gospel of violence, we publish the most thorough deadly force incident (DFI) study associated with faith-based organizations in the United States. The FBSN is not known for “breaking news” reporting. We avoid that chaotic arena due to the many inaccuracies that come out of quickly critiquing a current event. 

The FBSN is not in competition with other studies, but to throw out data derived from restrictive inclusion, paints an inaccurate sense of the real story of the risk of deadly violence at a church or ministry.

Think About it

While the “story source and publishing policy” of the FBSN DFI study is several pages long, with lots of definition, the spirit of the study could be summed up in a simple paragraph…

The most violent crimes associated with faith-based organizations in the U.S., specifically those with deadly potential, that any reasonable person would be properly concerned about had it occurred at their organization.

That study is always available for the general public at our website at https://fbsnamerica.causemachine.com/1999-2019-dfi-statistics

In summary, from 1/1/1999 through 12/31/2020 (22 full years);

• There were 2361 Deadly Force Incidents associated with faith-based organizations in the U.S.
• 624 of those incidents resulted in 1 or more murdered victims.
• There were 784 Murder Victims from those 624 incidents.

To overly define the way a violence victim died, is to disregard many victims and the primary risks associated with violence. 

The real story is often lost in the verbiage.