The FBI has been caught red-handed cooking the data for its homicide figures over the last two decades.
According to a report that pro-gun researcher Dr. John Lott published at RealClear Investigations, the FBI has been “quietly” changing its violent crime report for 2022 and years prior. Specifically, the FBI changed its homicide figures from the years of 2004 to 2023 according to Lott’s analysis.
Pro-Second Amendment writer Dean Weingarten noted that the largest adjustment in the homicide figures in 2021 and 2022 took place in the data from 2005. As of 2006, the total number of homicides the FBI reported for the year 2005 was 16,740 and 17,034 the following year. In 2019, these figures were reported as 16,740 and 17,309. As of 2024, the numbers were revised upward to 17,750 — an increase of 1,010 — for 2005 and 17,241 for 2006.
These changes call into question the integrity of the FBI’s numbers. We should not forget that on the campaign trail the topic of the FBI’s crime reports was highly debated by both Trump and Kamala Harris. At the September 10, 2024 presidential debate, then-presidential candidate Donald Trump attacked his Democratic rival Kamala Harris for being soft on crime. “Crime is through the roof,” Trump declared, criticizing the Biden regime’s weak criminal justice policies.
Debate moderator David Muir defended Harris by using the FBI’s official data to show that crime had been falling under President Joe Biden’s administration. “President Trump, as you know, the FBI says overall violent crime is coming down in this country,” Muir highlighted.
Liberal pundits scoffed at Trump’s comments about the U.S.’s crime rates. Though Dr. John Lott, showed in his RealClear Investigations report titled “Stealth Edit: FBI Quietly Revises Violent Crime Stats” that the FBI’s data was flawed. At first, the FBI reported that violent crime fell by 2.1%. Upon meticulous review by Lott, he found that crime had actually surged by 4.5%, thereby confirming Trump’s claims about the country experiencing an alarming crime wave.
Lott observed the following about the FBI’s data changes:
“The actual changes in crimes are extensive. The updated data for 2022 report that there were 80,029 more violent crimes than in 2021. There were an additional 1,699 murders, 7,780 rapes, 33,459 robberies, and 37,091 aggravated assaults. The question naturally arises: should the FBI’s 2023 numbers be believed?”
The most bone-chilling part of Lott’s report is how sharp the increase in violent crime has been since Joe Biden was installed in office in January 2021, once the FBI tweaked its data. He noted:
“While the FBI claims that serious violent crime has fallen by 5.8% since Biden took office, the NCVS numbers show that total violent crime has risen by 55.4%. Rapes are up by 42%, robbery by 63%, and aggravated assault by 55% during Biden’s term. Since the NCVS (National Crime Victimization Survey) started, the largest previous increase over three years was 27% in 2006, so the increase under Biden was slightly more than twice as large.”
What Lott has exposed in the FBI’s reporting is that there is a political incentive for government agencies to downplay certain noxious trends taking place nationwide over the last decade. It’s undeniable that the U.S. has become a more dangerous place to live in thanks to soft-on-crime policies and general attacks on law enforcement that have prompted unprecedented numbers of police officers to retire, thereby leaving police forces short-staffed.
The U.S. has a crime problem that most of its political class does not want to solve. The good news is that several red states have gotten tougher on crime and are also letting lawful individuals carry firearms without a permit in recent years. With how rotten the FBI and other federal institutions have become, it’s becoming abundantly clear that real solutions will have to come from the states with respect to public safety and gun policy.
The DC Swamp is clearly out of touch.
