Databases are all to the good  --  if you take the time to look behind the data. Unfortunately, people in the press and academia have become experts at putting out "databases," then citing them for a distorted rendition of what they actually show. They do this knowing that only a fraction of readers will get beyond the article's first few paragraphs.

Baton Rouge cop killer Gavin Eugene Long and others who have killed police officers in the line of duty are included in The Washington Post's Pulitzer Prize-award winning "Fatal Force" database, a review conducted by The Daily Caller finds.

The database also counts Omar Mateen, the Islamist who was killed by police in Orlando after slaughtering 49 people at a gay nightclub, as one of the 533 people killed by cops so far this year.

The database, which includes demographics of individuals fatally shot by police as well as details about their background and the circumstances of the shooting, has been touted by reporters and activists for filling in a gap left by the FBI's limited statistics.

But the database -- which counted 990 police shooting victims last year -- is often cited by activists without the important context that many of the people killed by police officers deserved it.