FBI stats: 'Blunt objects' killed more people in U.S. than all rifles

FPI / August 12, 2019

More people in the United States in 2017 were killed with “blunt objects” such as hammers and clubs than with rifles of any kind, according to FBI crime statistics.

The FBI data showed that 467 people were killed with “blunt objects (hammers, clubs, etc.),” while 403 were killed with rifles, Breitbart News reported.

The FBI’s 2017 crime figures showed 1,591 people were killed with “knives or cutting instruments.”

“It must be noted that the category of ‘rifles’ used by the FBI includes bolt action, pump action, single shot, and semi-automatic, as well as those the Left describes as ‘assault weapons,’ ” Breitbart Second Amendment columnist AWR Hawkins noted.

“This means only a percentage of the 403 deaths attributed to ‘rifles’ would have been carried out with an ‘assault weapon.’ So the gap between the number of persons beaten to death with hammers and clubs verses those killed with ‘assault weapons’ would be even greater than the gap between those who died in a hammer/club attack versus those who died being shot with ‘rifles’ of any kind.”

Hawkins noted that the FBI statistics show “four times as many people were stabbed to death as were killed with any kind of rifle. (The gap between the number stabbed to death and the number of persons explicitly killed with an ‘assault weapon’ would be even greater.)”

Hawkins continued: “Yet Democrats are pushing an ‘assault weapons’ ban and Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell says legislation for such a ban will be ‘front and center’ when the Senate reconvenes.”

According to Wikipedia, there were 22 mass shootings in the U.S. in 2017, including the Las Vegas massacre in which 58 people were killed. There were 19 mass shootings in 2018 and 12 thus far in 2019.

Free Press International