Every mass killing since 2015 -- and whether any law would have stopped it We told readers of this newsletter a couple of weeks ago that we had been hard at work on a special project. It finally published this week, with nifty interactive features and a video produced by a great team at The Washington Post. Back in 2015, we had examined a statement by Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) that none of the mass shootings that had taken place in the previous three years would have been prevented by proposed gun laws pending in Congress. At the time, we examined 12 mass killings involving guns over three years and determined that Rubio was right. Since then, there have 41 more incidents. So we set out to examine each case in detail to determine whether any major proposed gun restriction might have prevented the tragedy. The takeaway is nuanced: Only about one-third of these mass killings might have been prevented by any major proposals. But some ideas — such as not allowing people under age 21 to buy assault rifles and banning ammunition storage and feeding devices known as magazines that hold more than 10 rounds — might have minimized the bloodshed. The analysis also shows how laws already implemented sometimes fail to work. Existing state laws banning assault weapons or large-capacity magazines did not stop some shooters from obtaining these items. Other times, federal laws failed to prevent the transfer of a weapon from a person with mental health issues, a felon or even a former soldier who had been discharged who then became a mass shooter. Please read our full report via the link below. Enjoy this newsletter? Forward it to someone else who'd like it! If this email was forwarded to you, sign up here. Did you hear something fact-checkable? Send it here; we'll check it out. Yet another Mediscare ad, this time aimed at Manchin. We're always on the look out for "Mediscare" ads, which try to frighten seniors with claims of cuts to Medicare. It's a game that both Republicans and Democrats play. The latest example came via the 60 Plus Association, a conservative group. The organization is running a television ad that claims Sen. Joe Manchin III (D-W.V.) is "supporting Biden's devastating plan to strip $300 billion from Medicare, leaving West Virginia seniors with even fewer treatments and cures." This rhetoric concerns a complex issue — prescription drug provisions contained in President Biden's "Build Back Better" plan. The $300-billion number comes from a Congressional Budget Office estimate of the federal budget deficit savings from all of the plan's drug policy proposals. But about half of the money comes from not implementing a Trump administration rule — which likely would have raised premiums for seniors. So this is money that was never spent. The rest of the ad concerns a complex policy debate on how government negotiation of drug prices might affects drug innovation. The organization relies on a paper by a conservative economist — and ignores a more modest CBO estimate, even though it cites CBO's deficit numbers. 60 Plus earned Three Pinocchios. (Programming note: We're off to an international fact checking conference in Norway next week, so there will be no newsletter June 24.) We're always looking for fact-check suggestions. You can reach us via email, Twitter (@GlennKesslerWP and @AdriUsero) or Facebook. Read about our process and rating scale here, and sign up for the newsletter here. Scroll down for this week's Pinocchio roundup. | 
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