The CDC is hiding the data on armed citizens



Whoever controls crime data can shape the political debate. The Trump administration has already reversed some of the changes the Biden administration made to federal crime and gun data, including information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But politicization of data at the FBI and Justice Department still deserves attention.

Gun-control activists have long tried to “debunk” what they call the “good guy with a gun myth” as they push for stricter gun control laws. The federal government and much of the media have reinforced that argument by downplaying evidence that armed, law-abiding citizens stop public attacks.

Armed civilians stopped 52.9% of active-shooter attacks over the past 12 years.

Even the most dramatic defensive gun uses rarely get national news coverage. One rare example of news coverage was in August of this year, when Jordan Salinas shot at a gunman who was shooting at vehicles outside a Twin Falls, Idaho, In-N-Out fast-food burger restaurant. As one news story noted, Twin Falls County Sheriff Jack Johnson said that “the death toll would have undoubtedly been higher without the quick-thinking actions of Salinas and the off-duty cop.”

Just since the beginning of 2025, there have been 15 such defensive gun uses where police have made similar statements about armed civilians acting to save many lives.

The CDC recently restored information on defensive gun use that it removed from its website in 2022 after gun-control advocates privately pressured agency officials to take it down.

Until May 2022, the CDC cited a 2013 National Academies of Sciences report that the agency had co-sponsored. The report reviewed studies that produced widely varying estimates of defensive gun use. It cited an estimate of 108,000 defensive gun uses annually, but warns that “108,000 is difficult to interpret because respondents were not asked specifically about defensive gun use.”

The report noted that estimates from national surveys ranged from about 500,000 to more than 3 million defensive gun uses per year.

Mark Bryant, the founder of the Gun Violence Archive, was among gun control advocates who complained that gun-rights advocates had cited the estimates so often to “stop [gun control] legislation.”

The CDC has now restored its link to the National Academies report, but it misleadingly says the report puts defensive gun use at only 60,000 to 2.5 million defensive gun uses annually, not what the report itself says, as the national survey estimates that specifically ask about defensive gun use range from about 500,000 to more than 3 million per year, though even that fails to note that the lower estimate involves just handguns.

The FBI has also demonstrated how badly federal data can understate defensive gun uses.

The FBI defines an active shooter as “one or more individuals actively engaged in killing or attempting to kill people in a populated area.” The category can include an attack in which a gunman fires at a single person and misses, but it generally excludes shootings connected to other criminal activity, such as robberies or fights over drug turf.

I have seen these problems with federal data firsthand. Until January 2021, I served in the U.S. Department of Justice as senior adviser for research and statistics in the Office of Justice Programs. Part of my job involved evaluating the FBI’s active-shooter reports. During my time at DOJ, I discovered that the FBI had missed or misidentified numerous cases in which armed civilians stopped active shooters.

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Kyle Mazza/Anadolu/Getty Images

Unfortunately, the problem has continued with the newest report that was released on July 30. The FBI reports that armed citizens stopped only 16 of the 408 active-shooter incidents it identified from 2014 through 2025 and only two of the 34 active shooting cases in 2025.

The Crime Prevention Research Center, which I run, has identified many additional cases that the FBI either missed or misclassified, and we maintain an updated list of these incidents.

Our numbers tell a dramatically different story. From 2014 through 2025, the CPRC identified 615 active-shooter incidents and found that armed citizens stopped 225 of them. We excluded another 35 cases in which a law-abiding armed citizen stopped the attacker before he could fire a shot.

That means armed citizens stopped 36.6% of the active-shooter incidents we identified over those 12 years. During the most recent five years, the figure rose to 42.5%. That rate is about 10 times the roughly 4% rate indicated by the FBI’s data.

The difference becomes even larger when we examine only places where law-abiding citizens can legally carry firearms. We shouldn’t expect armed civilians to stop many attacks in places where the law prohibits them from carrying guns. In locations where citizens could legally carry firearms, our data shows that armed civilians stopped 52.9% of active-shooter attacks over the past 12 years. And it is increasing, with 58.3% in 2025.

The FBI has missed so many defensive gun uses that I find it hard to believe these omissions are simply accidental — particularly because the agency has failed to correct mistakes I previously brought to its attention.

Fortunately, no one needs to take my word for it. The CPRC lists the individual cases and links to the underlying sources, so anyone can examine the cases and compare our list with the FBI’s data.

This article was originally published by RealClearPolitics and made available via RealClearWire.

CDC Recognizes Detransitioning As Official Condition, Opens Door To Medical Treatment For Mutilated Kids

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in October will start recognizing detransitioning — reversing gender “transition” mutilation — in official diagnosis codes for purposes of insurance billing and data collection. Vice President J.D. Vance last week called for the jailing of medical professionals fraudulently using medical billing codes to get insurance to cover […]

EXPOSED: Fauci privately raised miscarriage concerns while publicly claiming ‘no red flags’



Newly released text messages from Dr. Anthony Fauci revealed a stark contrast between his private concerns and his public statements about COVID-19 vaccines and pregnancy. While Fauci assured Americans in 2021 that roughly 20,000 vaccinated pregnant women had shown “no red flags,” private messages from the same period show him discussing potential risks.

“Since the EUA and under the EUA, approximately 20,000 pregnant women have been vaccinated with no red flags, as we say, and this is being monitored by the CDC and the FDA,” Fauci said in 2021.

However, texts from Dr. Fauci’s phone reveal a much different story.

“I asked around a bit more and another issue came up that you need to be aware of. Since many people have significant cytokines storm and fever after the 2nd dose, this theoretically could be associated with miscarriage in the 1st trimester,” he wrote.


Two weeks later, Fauci said, “[FDA] have found thus far, and we have to be careful, but thus far, no red flags about that, about pregnant women.”

BlazeTV host Stu Burguiere is disturbed by the contrast.

“So that’s what he was saying publicly, while showing those sorts of doubts privately. And honestly, whether you think the COVID vaccine was great or you think it was terrible, whatever you think, you shouldn’t be doing those two things,” Stu comments.

“The man was asking other people in these circles, other physicians, other researchers, to delete emails to hide them. That is absolutely a crime when you’re a government official,” he adds.

Co-host Dave Landau points out that that wasn’t all Fauci was doing.

“He was asking that people be fired, have their medical license taken away. He was saying that he was ‘the science,’ that he was the be-all, end-all of what this was supposed to be,” Dave says.

Dave also explains that several of his friends' wives miscarried after getting the COVID shot.

“I had three people text me yesterday because their wife miscarried after that booster,” he says.

“I talked to a person yesterday as well who had a similar situation," Stu says.

"That’s four, though, just at this table," says Dave.

"But again, that’s, you know, it’s anecdotal,” Stu says.

“That’s a rough anecdote,” Dave adds.

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US birth rate plummets to record low in 2025 amid estimated 1,126,000 abortions



Vice President JD Vance, who with second lady Usha Vance is expecting the delivery of their fourth child in July, told pro-life advocates gathered for the 52nd annual March of Life last year, "I want more babies in the United States of America; I want more happy children in our country; and I want beautiful young men and young women who are eager to welcome them into the world and eager to raise them."

While an American baby boom might be in the cards, it certainly did not take place last year.

'This is the choice that Americans now face, and the stakes could not be higher.'

New data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reveal that U.S. fertility rates dropped to an all-time low in 2025.

There were an estimated 3,606,400 births last year — a 1% decline from 2024. A plurality of babies — just over 1.11 million — were born to mothers in the 30-34 age group, which conforms to the years-long trend of women increasingly delaying family generation until older ages or putting it off altogether.

The general fertility rate, which references the average number of children born to a woman in her lifetime if she were to experience the age-specific fertility rates of a given year, was 53.1 births per 1,000 women ages 15-44. The rate has decreased by 23% since 2007, the year of the Great Recession.

Whereas the year-over-year decline in births per woman in the 15-44 cohort was 1%, the fertility rate for females ages 15-19 declined by 7% last year, dropping to 11.7 births per 1,000 females — another record low. The CDC notes that the fertility rate for teenagers has decreased by 72% since 2007 and 81% since 1991.

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Bettman/Getty Images

The total fertility rate averaged 3.7 births per woman in 1960; 2.12 births in 2007; 1.64 in 2020; and 1.6 in 2024. It fell again last year to 1.57, according to a Wall Street Journal calculation using the new CDC data.

This is particularly bad news for those keen to bequeath the nation to heritage Americans since the total fertility rate necessary for a population to maintain stability and replenish itself without requiring replacement by foreign nationals — what is referred to as replacement level fertility — is 2.1.

Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. said last year that a rate below replacement "is a national security threat to our country."

Total fertility rates have plummeted across the first world. In the European Union, for example, the rate reportedly dropped from 2.62 in 1964 to 1.34 in 2024. The same year, the rate in Scotland dropped to 1.25 and to 1.41 in England and Wales.

Canada became one of the developed nations suffering "ultra-low fertility" in 2024, with a total fertility rate of 1.25 kids per woman. The Canadian government credited "increased educational levels, greater participation in the labor market, changing social norms, and the widespread use of contraception" for helping drive down the number.

The U.S. Congressional Budget Office projected in a report earlier this year that the fertility rate for foreign-born women in America this year will be substantially higher than the rate for native-born women, leading the home team 1.79 to 1.53.

The report noted further that:

on the basis of recent laws, policies, and demographic trends, CBO projects that the rate of population growth will generally slow over the next 30 years, from an average of 0.3% a year in the next decade to an average of 0.1% a year from 2037 to 2056. The total population is projected to stop growing in 2056 and remain roughly the same size as in the previous year.

The CBO added that net immigration is expected "to become an increasingly important source of population growth, especially if the annual number of deaths begin to exceed the annual number of births as expected in 2030."

Some analysts have attempted to put a positive spin on America's dwindling fertility rate.

"Women now have better control over their reproductive lives, so there’s not as much unintended pregnancy as there used to be," Alison Gemmill, an associate professor of epidemiology at the UCLA School of Public Health, told CNN. "Our timelines have shifted."

According to data released last month by the pro-abortion Guttmacher Institute, there were an estimated 1,126,000 clinician-provided abortions last year — nearly one-third the number of the reported live births.

In addition to exerting "better control" over their God-given procreative ability, Gemmill suggested that some would-be parents are rethinking having kids in light of concerns about so-called climate change, the economy, and raising a child in a supposedly "inequitable world."

Karen Benjamin Guzzo, a demographer at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, recently told the New York Times, "There’s been a lot of doom and gloom about the birth rate, but the decline is also a success story."

The Heritage Foundation has, alternatively, acknowledged this bleak trend as a crisis, noting in a January report, "American family life is truly at a crossroads. One path is marked by unwed childbearing, low rates of marriage, low fertility, low commitment, and easy divorce. This path is associated with the view that family formation (or its avoidance) is primarily about fulfilling adult desires and adult needs."

"The other path elevates the family unit as an inherent good based on the commitment and sacrifice of husbands and wives for each other’s sake and for the sake of children that their union would welcome into the world. This path is associated with the view that all life is sacred and that sees the family as a source of fulfillment for adults because they direct their energies to the good of the family unit instead of to themselves alone," continued the report. "Underlying this view is a deep sense of gratitude in knowing that human beings are here by God’s grace and that children are divine gifts."

"This is the choice that Americans now face, and the stakes could not be higher," the report added.

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'Truly a fool's errand': Top CDC adviser, RFK Jr. ally resigns from vaccine panel



As many top figures in the Department of Homeland Security are being replaced, another department has lost a key adviser in the health sector amid a lengthy legal fight.

The New York Times reported that Dr. Robert Malone, who served as the vice chair of the Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices, has resigned from his position amid a complicated legal fight and recent setbacks.

'If offered the opportunity to participate in a relaunched ACIP, I will respectfully decline.'

Dr. Malone, an ally of Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. and a strong critic of the COVID pandemic response, resigned shortly after the panel's existence was thrown into jeopardy by a federal judge in Massachusetts.

The ruling, the New York Times previously reported, struck down several decisions on vaccines made by the panel.

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Photo by Ben Hendren/Bloomberg via Getty Images

In his decision to halt the panel's overhaul of the vaccine regulations, Judge Brian Murphy of the District of Massachusetts noted that the panel is supposed to review scientific evidence with "a method scientific in nature and codified into law through procedural requirements," according to NYT.

However, the judge wrote, "Unfortunately, the government has disregarded those methods and thereby undermined the integrity of its actions."

In a series of text messages obtained by Roll Call, Malone said he would not consider rejoining the panel if it were revived after this legal setback: "If offered the opportunity to participate in a relaunched ACIP, I will respectfully decline."

"Hundreds of hours of uncompensated labor, incredible hate from many quarters, hostile press, internal bickering, weaponized leaking, sabotage," Malone wrote in another text message, according to Roll Call. "I have better things to do."

However, there is evidence to suggest that Malone gave much thought to this decision, including another text message that reportedly said, "This was not an impulsive decision."

Malone also echoed these sentiments publicly on Monday in a social media post, which included the final publication of research he had prepared for the panel. He wrote: "That concludes publication of materials I had prepared for the ACIP COVID and Influenza work groups. I hope y'all find them useful. Please keep in mind that both the American Academy of Pediatrics and a Boston Federal Judge have determined that I am unqualified to serve on the CDC ACIP and contribute to advising the CDC Director on vaccine policy matters."

"So much for providing hundreds of hours of free labor to serve my country. Truly a fool's errand," Malone added.

Dr. Kirk Milhoan serves as chair of the panel. Milhoan and Malone were joined by 13 other voting members on the panel, a handful of ex officio members from different government health agencies, and a number of liaison representatives from other medical institutions.

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Biden’s COVID censorship machine takes a hit: Missouri wins landmark ban on federal threats to Big Tech



A landmark settlement delivered a blow to the censorship industrial complex that silenced Americans during the COVID era.

Sen. Eric Schmitt (R-Mo.) announced Tuesday that Missouri had reached a settlement agreement with the U.S. government in its Missouri v. Biden lawsuit, which accused the Biden administration of violating Americans' First Amendment rights by directing social media companies to censor speech challenging the government's COVID messaging.

'For every working Missouri family tired of being silenced by their own government: this victory is yours.'

Schmitt filed the lawsuit against the Biden administration while serving as Missouri attorney general, before securing his Senate seat.

The agreement included a 10-year Consent Decree that enforces a narrow permanent injunction on the surgeon general, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and the Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency. The injunction prevents them from threatening social media companies with any form of punishment if those companies fail to remove or suppress content that contains protected speech.

However, this ban applies only to posts made on Facebook, Instagram, X, LinkedIn, and YouTube by the specific plaintiffs in the case, including Missouri and Louisiana government officials and agencies acting in their official capacity. It does not extend to other social media networks or content posted by the general public.

"The Parties also agree that government, politicians, media, academics, or anyone else applying labels such as 'misinformation,' 'disinformation,' or 'malinformation' to speech does not render it constitutionally unprotected," the agreement reads.

The court must first approve this settlement agreement.

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Eric Schmitt. Photo by Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images

"We just won Missouri v. Biden," Schmitt wrote in a post on X. "As Missouri's Attorney General, I sued the Biden regime for brazenly colluding with Big Tech to silence Missouri families — censoring the truth about COVID, the Hunter Biden laptop, the open border, and the 2020 election. They tried to turn Facebook, X, YouTube, and the rest into their private speech police, labeling dissent 'misinformation' while they pushed their narrative on the American people."

Schmitt called the Consent Decree the "first real, operational restraint on the federal censorship machine."

He explained that it "directly binds the Surgeon General, the CDC, and CISA: no more threats of legal, regulatory, or economic punishment. No more coercion. No more unilateral direction or veto of platform decisions to remove, suppress, deplatform, or algorithmically bury protected speech."

"For every working Missouri family tired of being silenced by their own government: this victory is yours. The heartland fought back, and the heartland delivered," Schmitt concluded.

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Photo by Matt Cardy/Getty Images

Benjamin Weingarten, a senior contributor at the Federalist, addressed the victory's narrow application.

"This decree is limited to the plaintiffs, but as precedent, and practically, its impact may prove orders of magnitude more powerful in protecting disfavored speech," Weingarten wrote, calling it "a momentous blow for the First Amendment."

National Institutes of Health Director Jay Bhattacharya, who had to withdraw as a plaintiff in the case after being appointed by the Trump administration, called the settlement "a huge win for all Americans."

"Huzzah! The consent decree in Missouri v. Biden is a historic victory for free speech in the US. Though I had to switch to the government side in the case after I became NIH director, I've never been more pleased by 'losing' in my life," he wrote.

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We’re losing children to diseases we already defeated



Over the past year, the Food and Drug Administration has done important work drawing attention to how food choices affect health. Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr. deserves credit for shining a light on food additives and America’s dependence on processed foods.

I’m a registered nurse and a mother. I applaud that work. But I also need to ask a hard question: Why aren’t childhood vaccines getting the same attention and urgency?

We don’t force anyone to vaccinate. We shouldn’t. But we do owe families accurate information about the real risks of preventable diseases and the real protection vaccines provide.

I’ve spent years in intensive care watching people of all ages fight respiratory illness. Even with experience, it’s brutal to see a patient cling to life through ventilators, intubation, or ECMO machines.

Last year, I watched in horror as a measles outbreak took the lives of two unvaccinated children in Texas. Whooping cough killed two infants in Louisiana. Closer to home, my own child caught whooping cough. It was frightening and exhausting to see how coughing fits made it almost impossible for him to catch his breath.

He was old enough to have received his vaccines. I believe that reduced the severity of his illness and likely kept him out of the hospital. That experience leaves me with one request to RFK: Give childhood vaccines the same serious focus you’ve given food safety.

Kennedy says he cares about children. I believe him. That’s why I’m urging him to speak clearly about routine childhood immunizations — because I’ve seen what happens when preventable diseases return.

Hospitals are treating illnesses that routine vaccines usually prevent or blunt. Last year, the CDC reported an increase in meningococcal disease, a dangerous illness that immunization can prevent. South Carolina is dealing with a record-breaking measles outbreak. These diseases can bring devastating outcomes: brain swelling from measles; brain damage, limb loss, or deafness from meningococcal infection.

Gaps in routine immunization also open the door to pathogens we once had under control. A paralytic polio case in an unvaccinated person in New York in 2022 underscored what’s at stake: Irreversible paralysis still remains possible when vaccination rates fall.

Childhood vaccines rank among public health’s most effective tools. They prevent outbreaks and protect children from serious infections and lifelong complications. They also fit comfortably inside a conservative framework. They’re voluntary. They’re widely available. They’ve been used for decades. Parents make informed choices for their families.

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Jordan Vonderhaar/Bloomberg via Getty Images

High vaccination rates also protect the most vulnerable. They reduce transmission, which helps safeguard infants too young to be vaccinated and children with medical conditions that keep them from receiving certain shots. That means fewer hospitalizations, less strain on health care systems, and healthier schools and communities.

That’s why recent messaging from Washington worries me. Telling Americans to “talk to your doctor” sounds reasonable, until you face the reality on the ground. Roughly one-third of Americans lack access to primary care, and many children don’t have a regular provider. For millions of families, “talk to your doctor” translates to “you’re on your own.”

Parents in small towns and working-class neighborhoods don’t always have easy access to specialists who can walk them through immunization questions. They want to do the right thing. They need clear, trustworthy guidance from national health leaders — not signals that create doubt about vaccines that protect kids.

Vaccine conversations can get sensitive fast. Parents have questions, and they deserve honest answers. But they also deserve clear, consistent leadership that says what decades of evidence has shown: Routine childhood immunization works, and it protects children.

We don’t force anyone to vaccinate. We shouldn’t. But we do owe families accurate information about the real risks of preventable diseases and the real protection vaccines provide.

As a nurse, I work to prevent harm. As a mother, I refuse to accept a return to diseases we already know how to stop. As a conservative, I don’t want to break systems that save lives.

We can make America healthy again by tackling chronic disease and by protecting kids from preventable infections. These goals don’t compete. They reinforce each other.