FBI: Killers Prefer Knives, Hammers, Fists, and Feet Over Rifles

I’ve seen numerous articles recently discussing the findings in the latest FBI crime report, which shows clearly that rifles do NOT pose any sort of impending threat to the safety of the general public. I have pondered how best to share this with our readers, and when I saw this Law Enforcement Today article, I knew I’d found it.

What the antis don’t want you to realize is right there in black and white: In 2018, more people were killed with knives, hammers, clubs, and even feet than were killed with rifles. And this includes ALL rifles, not just the semi-autos that are currently being demonized.

From the article:

According to the FBI, more than five times as many people were killed in 2018 by knives, clubs and other cutting instruments than with rifles.

The metrics show that there were a total of 1,515 deaths by knives or other cutting instruments last year. Compare that against 297 people killed by rifles…

It gets better. More than 100 more people were killed with hammers and clubs in 2018 than were killed by rifles. There were 443 people killed with hammers, clubs, or other ‘blunt objects.’

We need to point out that the data isn’t just semiautomatic rifles – it’s ALL rifles, including bolt action, pump or lever action rifles as well.

If you were to contrast the numbers between JUST semiautomatic rifles and knife homicides, the gap would be even larger.

Fists and feet are used to kill far more often than rifles are.

Here’s another number that will blow your mind. The data also shows that in 2018, there were 672 deaths from ‘fists, feet and other “personal weapons”‘ -– which is once again more than with rifles.

In 2017, there were 692 people killed in the same way –- a number larger than the total number of homicides by rifles and shotguns combined.

The article continues considerably farther, and I encourage you to check it out in full, as it ventures into the current Democratic appetite for gun bans. I will leave our readers with the knowledge that there is not any sort of rifle-murder epidemic, and this final thought from LET:

Another theme pushed again and again [in anti-gun rhetoric] was that ‘assault weapons’ like the AR-15 are ‘battlefield weapons’ that have no place on ‘America’s streets.’

Fortunately, as witness Amy Swearer testified, the overwhelmingly majority of the 16 million or so AR and AK pattern rifles in America are not ‘on the streets’ but in the homes of law-abiding owners who never have and never will use them for anything other than lawful purposes.

Stay safe, my friends.

Russ Chastain

Editor & Contributing Writer Russ Chastain is a lifelong hunter and shooter who has spent his life learning about hunting, shooting, guns, ammunition, gunsmithing, reloading, and bullet casting. He started toting his own gun in the woods at age nine and he's pursued deer with rifles since 1982, so his hunting knowledge has been growing for more than three and a half decades. His desire and ability to share this knowledge with others has also grown, and Russ has been professionally writing and editing original hunting & shooting content since 1998. Russ Chastain has a passion for sharing accurate, honest, interesting hunting & shooting knowledge and stories with people of all skill levels.