As War on ‘Assault Weapons’ Continues, One Significant Fact Remains Undiscussed

One of the big goals of every anti-gun group out there is a ban on so-called assault weapons and a lot of anti-gun states are eager to comply. New Mexico, for example, seems intent on advancing their draconian ban on gas operated semi-automatic weapons. Other states already have some version in place, while such a bill seems likely to be introduced in pretty much every other state.

They don’t like these guns and based on both their actions and the media reports, one might get the idea that such weapons are the biggest scourge in our nation.

Except, they’re not.

Data from PEW Research shows that rifles of all kinds–including those Democrats label “assault weapons”–accounted for only four percent of U.S. gun murders in 2023.

PEW gathered data via FBI and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reports, which showed there were 17,927 gun murders in the United States in 2023. Of those murders, 13,529, or 53 percent, were committed with handguns.

Four percent of the U.S. gun murders were committed with rifles and one percent were committed with shotguns.

In fact, the above-linked article over at Breitbart–nice work, AWR Hawkins–notes that knives are used twice as often to kill as rifles in 2021 and 3.5 times more in 2020.

So what’s the deal?

Well, so-called assault weapons are used pretty rarely in homicides, but they’re used often enough in high-profile shootings such as mass murder incidents. One could make the case that the presence of such a rifle makes it far more likely for a murder to become high profile in the first place, but that isn’t universal.

But because these show up at these high-profile massacres, people get an incorrect impression.

The way the media reports them makes others believe these are used in all mass murders committed with a firearm. I’ve encountered more than enough people who don’t seem to realize that handguns are actually used more often in mass shootings than “assault weapons” to believe it’s a fairly widespread belief.

It’s hopefully not nearly universal, but it’s bad enough as it is.

But the numbers don’t lie here. This is a very basic examination of the data, followed by a simple report showing what is actually happening–or, more accurately, what happened in 2023.

And let’s keep in mind that this is all rifles. This includes someone using their hunting rifle to kill someone, though it’s unclear how common that is. It may not be enough to change the numbers at all, but it does suggest the possibility that not every one of these murders was with some AR-15 or AK-47 type rifle, which would make the number killed with these rifles or other modern sporting rifles even lower.

These kinds of weapons aren’t the threat many like to claim. They’re not even essential for mass killers to rack up high body counts, as the Virginia Tech killing amply demonstrates.

But they are useful for enabling a population to fight back against a tyrannical government or a foreign invader, which is the whole point of the Second Amendment in the first place.