In March of 2025, Everytown, the activist organization created with considerable funding from multi-billionaire Michael Bloomberg, launched a website called EveryShot. EveryShot is an artificial intelligence tool using ChatGPT-40 mini to search for and list, according to Everytown, a collection of incidents in the 50 U.S. states involving shootings with a firearm or the brandishing of a firearm. Specifically excluded are BB guns, pellet guns, toy guns, or events that are fictional. A filter is used to exclude duplicates. The tool often shows multiple sources for a single event. The tool can flag events when there is uncertainty or discrepancies the flag brings the attention of a human for review. The tool updates the database twice a week.
In the Terms of Use, Everytown states the results can be “incomplete, inaccurate, offensive, or otherwise unpredictable”. In this correspondent’s use of the tool, such a description is correct.
The tool has been developed by Everytown. Everytown is strongly biased toward greater political control over the ownership and use of firearms. It is not surprising there are no categories of firearms use under the categories of “Intent” listed as s justified homicides. There is no category of “Incident Type” listed as self-defense.
In “Relationship to Shooter” there are no categories for “gang member”, “criminal”, “drug dealer”, or even “stranger” or “attacker”. There are only Self, Friend, various family members, Intimate Partner, Bystander, and “Not Reported”.
The description of the sources limits them to occurring in “one of the 50 US states”; the District of Columbia, a United States federal territory, is included.
As an experiment, this correspondent chose to look at all the incidents reported under the categories of Firearm Type – “Machine Gun” and Firearm Ownership – “Legal”. Such incidents are extremely rare. EveryShot reported six incidents from January 1 through April 21.
It appeared to this reporter that EveryShot was mistaken in all six incidents. In all six incidents, the “machine gun” was an illegally possessed firearm. Three of the incidents explicitly identified the illegal machine gun as a “Glock switch”. One incident identified the offending firearm(s) as “illegal conversion devices”. One incident did not identify the firearm, except as a “machine gun”, but there was a charge of “felon in possession,” which indicated the firearm was illegally owned. The sixth incident identified the firearm as a MAC 11, but careful reading showed it to be Masterpiece Arms Grim Reaper, a semi-automatic replica of the MAC. In that case, the firearm itself was not a machine gun, and it was illegal for the person to possess it, as they were charged with being a felon in possession.
Here are the links to each of the six incidents:
- January 20, 2026 –Michigan City Indiana, Glock Switch, shots fired. Illegal possession.
- January 29, 2026 – Elkhart, Indiana, Twins Arrested for Machine Gun possession, Glock switch, and illegal possession.
- February 11, 2026 – Listed as Endicott, NY (actually Montgomery County, PA.) MAC 11. No mention of conversion. Masterpiece Arms Grim Reaper firearm, not a machine gun. Illegal possession.
- February 19, 2026 – Waco Texas, illegal conversion devices
- March 6, 2026 – Laredo, Texas, shots fired, Glock switch
- March 30, 2026 – Gray’s Hill, SC, Possession of a machine gun, felon in possession, no explanation of the offending firearm.
There are other quirks in the EveryShot AI engine. Under “Brandishing,” the engine lists 92 incidents. 92 are listed under “fatal”, 0 incidents are listed under non-fatal, and 0 incidents are listed under “other”. The engine must have more categories than “fatal”, “non-fatal”, and “other”, because total incidents are listed as 1,560, many times greater than the total of “fatal”, “non-fatal”, and “other”, which only comes to 92. Categories available other than the three mentioned were not obvious.
Such are the quirks that EveryTown warns against as potential flaws in the EveryShot AI construct.
This does not mean EveryShot is useless. It means the numbers are, at best, a flawed program’s interpretation of news stories, which are highly biased by the way the searches are constructed.
Another reason to be cautious is this: It is not disputed that the most common fatalities involving firearms in the USA are suicides. They account for about two-thirds of all fatalities involving firearms. Because of the limitations of the publicly available data from the sources used by EveryShot, suicides only account for about 9% of fatalities by firearm. It appears that suicides are not covered by the media anywhere near completely.
If you use EveryShot, be aware of the limitations. Keep in mind the cautions put forward by Everytown about its use. Do not consider the statistics to be factual or accurate, because the EverShot AI has many limitations.
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About Dean Weingarten:
Dean Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of Constitutional Carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and mining engineering, and retired from the Department of Defense after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and Evaluation.
