Doc91678
Rookie
- Banned
- #1
By Dean Weingarten
30 December, 2012 |
In the media and Administrations push to use the recent school shooting to advance their political agenda, they are careful to couch their words in vague emotionalism and obscure terms that avoid any facts or rational discussion. The rifles that they are most keen on banning are exactly those firearms that are least used in murders, but the most protected by the Constitution.
Modern sport utility rifles, which are included in the vague term assault weapons", are used so seldom for murder that many states do not see a single case in a year.
In 2010, there were 12,996 murders. Firearms were used in 8,775. Of those, rifles were used in 358, and modern sport utility rifles, often called assault rifles are a fraction of those. These rifles are seldom used in crime because standard handguns, at close range, offer comparable firepower and are more easily concealed.
Hands and feet were used to kill 742. Clubs were used to kill 540. Knives were used to kill 1,704.
While the type of firearm was not listed for 2,035 homicides, it is unlikely that there were very many sport utility rifles in that group. Sport utility rifles are easily identified, and so rarely used in murder as to make headlines when they are.
This does not make them rare. They are the most popular type of rifle sold in the last 5 years. Most rifles sold in the United States are semi-automatic. The difficulty of defining "assault weapon" (which primarily depends on cosmetic features) makes it hard to say how many are owned in the United States, but it is likely somewhere between 10 and 30
million.
[Snip]
Read more at:
GUN WATCH: More Murdered with Hands and Feet than "Assault Rifles"
Link to FBI Statistics 2010...
FBI — Expanded Homicide Data Table 11
30 December, 2012 |
In the media and Administrations push to use the recent school shooting to advance their political agenda, they are careful to couch their words in vague emotionalism and obscure terms that avoid any facts or rational discussion. The rifles that they are most keen on banning are exactly those firearms that are least used in murders, but the most protected by the Constitution.
Modern sport utility rifles, which are included in the vague term assault weapons", are used so seldom for murder that many states do not see a single case in a year.
In 2010, there were 12,996 murders. Firearms were used in 8,775. Of those, rifles were used in 358, and modern sport utility rifles, often called assault rifles are a fraction of those. These rifles are seldom used in crime because standard handguns, at close range, offer comparable firepower and are more easily concealed.
Hands and feet were used to kill 742. Clubs were used to kill 540. Knives were used to kill 1,704.
While the type of firearm was not listed for 2,035 homicides, it is unlikely that there were very many sport utility rifles in that group. Sport utility rifles are easily identified, and so rarely used in murder as to make headlines when they are.
This does not make them rare. They are the most popular type of rifle sold in the last 5 years. Most rifles sold in the United States are semi-automatic. The difficulty of defining "assault weapon" (which primarily depends on cosmetic features) makes it hard to say how many are owned in the United States, but it is likely somewhere between 10 and 30
million.
[Snip]
Read more at:
GUN WATCH: More Murdered with Hands and Feet than "Assault Rifles"
Link to FBI Statistics 2010...
FBI — Expanded Homicide Data Table 11
