Everytown Research & Policy, a prominent gun control advocacy group, recently posted a graphic on X claiming that “1 in 15 adults in the U.S. have experienced a mass shooting.” This staggering statistic, implying over 17 million American adults have faced such trauma, demands scrutiny, especially given its potential to shape public perception and policy. Yet, a deep dive into Everytown’s own report, “Mass Shootings in the United States” (https://everytownresearch.org/mass-shootings-in-america/), reveals a glaring issue: nowhere does the report substantiate or even address this bold claim. This investigative post critically examines the discrepancy, exposing Everytown’s misleading narrative and questioning the integrity of their research methods.
The Claim: A Statistic Without a Source
Everytown’s X graphic asserts that 1 in 15 U.S. adults—roughly 6.67% of the adult population (approximately 258 million in 2025)—have “experienced” a mass shooting. This suggests direct exposure, such as being a victim, survivor, or witness, to an event Everytown defines as an incident where “four or more people are shot and killed, excluding the shooter.” With about 17.2 million adults implied, the claim is extraordinary, yet Everytown’s report, cited as the source, offers no data, methodology, or discussion to back it up. The report, last updated in March 2023, focuses on mass shooting trends, gun law correlations, and policy solutions, but contains no survey, statistical analysis, or reference to adult exposure rates.
The absence is striking. Everytown’s methodology details 194 mass shootings from 2009–2018, averaging 19 per year, with a high of 24 in 2011 and 2013. Even expanding to 4,011 mass shootings from 2014–2022 (per a 2023 JAMA study cited in Wikipedia), the cumulative victim count—killed or wounded—remains in the thousands, not millions. Assuming an average of 10 victims per incident (a generous estimate), 4,011 shootings yield roughly 40,110 victims, far short of 17 million. Everytown’s report also notes that “the reach of mass shootings stretches far beyond those killed and wounded,” impacting communities, but it provides no quantitative evidence for such a broad exposure claim.
Critical Examination: Where’s the Data?
Everytown’s failure to substantiate the “1 in 15” claim raises red flags. The report’s data focuses on incident counts, gun types (e.g., 81% of mass shootings involve handguns), and correlations with state gun laws, not population exposure. No section addresses surveys, interviews, or statistical models estimating how many adults have “experienced” mass shootings. A related Everytown post on X (@gen0m1cs, March 31, 2025) critiques a similar claim, noting a “crazy broad definition” that might include “neighborhood shootouts” or vague “public” incidents, suggesting methodological overreach. Yet, even this critique finds no trace of the 1 in 15 figure in Everytown’s work.
The claim’s plausibility falters under scrutiny. The U.S. adult population in 2025 is roughly 258 million. Dividing 17.2 million by 4,011 incidents (2014–2022) implies each mass shooting affected over 4,200 adults—an absurd figure given most incidents occur in localized settings (e.g., schools, malls). Everytown’s own data shows mass shootings are rare relative to overall gun violence (125 daily gun deaths, 200 wounded), making the 1 in 15 claim statistically implausible without a radically expanded definition of “experience” (e.g., hearing news reports), which the report never articulates.
Everytown’s Track Record: Advocacy Over Accuracy?
Everytown’s advocacy-driven mission—promoting gun control through “evidence-based policies”—may explain the discrepancy. The report emphasizes solutions like background checks and Extreme Risk laws, using emotive language (“mass shootings haunt our nation’s collective conscience”) to galvanize support. The “1 in 15” graphic, lacking substantiation, appears as a rhetorical tool to amplify fear and urgency, rather than a rigorously derived statistic. Critics on X, like @wil_da_beast630 (May 26, 2022), have called Everytown’s numbers “complete hack-work,” accusing them of inflating school shooting counts by including minor incidents. This pattern suggests a willingness to prioritize impact over precision, undermining credibility.
The report’s silence on the claim is damning. If Everytown conducted a survey or analysis to support “1 in 15,” it should be detailed in the methodology, yet no such evidence exists. Alternative sources, like a 2024 Everytown brief on LGBTQ+ youth, note that 22% of transgender youth reported being impacted by a mass shooting, but this is a specific demographic, not the general adult population, and still falls short of explaining the broader claim. The JAMA study (2023) and The Violence Project database (1966–2019) confirm mass shootings’ devastating but localized impact, with no data suggesting millions of adults are directly affected.
Implications: Misleading the Public
Everytown’s unsubstantiated claim risks eroding trust in gun violence research. They fuel skepticism by broadcasting a statistic without evidence, as seen in X posts questioning their methodology. The “1 in 15” figure, if exaggerated, distorts the public’s understanding of mass shootings, potentially overshadowing real victims’ experiences and undermining legitimate policy discussions. Traditional Christian doctrine, which values truth (John 8:32), would caution against such misleading assertions, urging accountability over agenda-driven narratives.
The establishment narrative—Everytown as a reliable research authority—warrants scrutiny. Their failure to align the X graphic with their report suggests either sloppy scholarship or deliberate sensationalism, neither of which serves the public good. The absence of transparency about data sources or definitions (e.g., what constitutes “experience”) further erodes confidence, especially when juxtaposed with their detailed analyses of other metrics.
Conclusion
Everytown Research’s claim that “1 in 15 adults in the U.S. have experienced a mass shooting” is a bold assertion unsupported by their own report. The *Mass Shootings in the United States* document offers no data, survey, or analysis to confirm this statistic, revealing a troubling gap between advocacy and evidence. This discrepancy, coupled with Everytown’s history of contested claims, suggests a prioritization of emotional impact over factual rigor. As gun violence demands serious solutions, such misleading graphics only muddy the waters, betraying the trust of those seeking truth in a crisis. Follow the data, not the hype—Everytown’s claim doesn’t hold up.
**Sources**: Everytown for Gun Safety Support Fund, “Mass Shootings in the United States,” March 2023, https://everytownresearch.org/mass-shooting-report/; Wikipedia, “Mass Shootings in the United States,” April 15, 2025; posts on X[](https://www.everytown.org/issues/mass-shootings/)[](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mass_shootings_in_the_United_States)