President Obama is quick to scold the country for not doing something—read: pass gun control laws—every time there’s a senseless mass killing. Yet by one group’s count, the Obama administration’s drones have killed far more innocent civilians than mass shootings have.
The Obama administration last week released a report estimating that its drone strikes have killed between 64 and 116 civilians from 2009 to the end of 2015. But the Bureau of Investigative Journalism puts the total between 380 and 801.
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In the report, the administration claims it launched 473 drone strikes, killing between 2,372 and 2,581 terrorist “combatants.” If we use the low and high limits of the administration’s numbers, that’s between a 1-to-37 and a 1-to-22 ratio of civilian-to-terrorist deaths.
If the Bureau’s estimate is correct, the ratio falls between 1-to-3 and 1-to-7 innocents to terrorists.
So how does the number of drone casualties compare to innocents killed in mass shootings on U.S. soil?
The LA Times lists the mass murders, along with the total death count—including the perpetrator if applicable—at 178 if we stop at last December 31, as the Obama drone strike study does, and 228 deaths if we include Orlando. Both fall well short of the Bureau’s estimate of innocent civilians killed by drones.
