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AP: Clinton Debate Gun Claims Unsupported by Facts

'The claim appears to be unsupported on all counts'

AP
November 18, 2015

The Associated Press fact checked Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton's claims about gun violence in Saturday's CBS News debate and found they were incorrect.

"Since we last debated in Las Vegas, nearly 3,000 people have been killed by guns," Clinton said during the debate. "Two hundred children have been killed. This is an emergency."

She went on to claim that since the Vegas debate on Oct. 13 there had also been 21 mass shootings, including "one last weekend in Des Moines where three were murdered."

The AP determined "the claim appears to be unsupported on all counts." Citing data from the Gun Violence Archive, the news wire found it is likely that under 1,000 people have died in the month between the two Democratic debates. They also found that there were 70 firearms-related deaths of children in that time period, not the 200 Clinton claimed.

The archive's numbers encompass any firearm-related death and include suicides, self-defense shootings, and police shootings. Murders likely make up less than half of the firearms related deaths in the United States between October and November.

There were no mass shootings, which must involve four fatalities to fit FBI definitions, in Iowa during the time frame Clinton cited. The AP did identify one shooting in Des Moines on Nov. 8, when four were shot in a nightclub. One person was killed during that shooting, not the three Clinton claimed.

Clinton made a number of factual errors in her gun claims during a major speech earlier this year.