Each time some whacko goes off the rails and kills a few people, there are more calls to ban “assault rifles”. Because, apparently, they’re a huge problem. The Liberal assertion is that if we banned “assault rifles”, we’d save a whole bunch of lives.
Let’s see how big of a problem it really is.
I’m going to start out by saying what most people who read this already know. But, for those of you who are complaining about guns without having any knowledge about guns, an AR-15 is a type of what you’d call an “assault rifle”.
The “AR” in “AR-15” does not stand for “Assault Rifle”. It stands for “ArmaLite Rifle”. ArmaLite was the original manufacturer of the weapon. Every time you say that “AR” stands for “Assault Rifle”, you’re showing just how little you know about the subject.
Now, let’s look at some numbers.
According to the FBI, there were 16,425 homicides committed in the U.S. in 2019 (the latest year we have complete data). In 324 of them, a rifle was the weapon of choice.
The data is likely incomplete as not all law enforcement agencies submit their data. But, whether or not the totals are off by a bit in either direction isn’t really all that important. It should be at least directionally correct.
But still, that’s only 324 homicides committed by someone using a rifle. Not just “assault rifles”. Any kind of rifle.
The rifle category contains a large number of weapons. The term “rifle” could be used to describe a bolt-action .22 to an AR-15, and everything in between (shotguns are counted separately). So, of those 324 people killed with a rifle, only a fraction of them were killed by someone using an “assault rifle”.
How small of a fraction? Pretty small. The information I could find indicates that “assault rifles were used in less than 10% of homicides where a rifle was used. But, let’s be generous and say that all of the 324 people were killed by “assault rifles”.
Something we need to keep in mind is that the term “homicide” covers a lot of ground. In this case, it includes victims killed by criminals as well as criminals killed by their intended victims. If someone defends themselves and kills the criminal, that’s still counted as “homicide”.
Now I don’t know about you, but I don’t lose any sleep over criminals getting killed. So, right off the top, I would discard any criminals getting themselves killed while committing a crime. You know the saying, “play stupid games, win stupid prizes”.
It is estimated that 2.5 million crimes a year are prevented because of a good guy with a gun. So, it is reasonable to infer that at least a few of those 2.5 million prevented crimes were prevented because the intended victim shot and killed the criminal. And, at least some of the intended victims used a rifle.
But, in the interest of being extremely conservative with our estimates, let’s go ahead and say that all of our estimated 324 people killed by “assault rifles” were innocent, law-abiding people.
So, where does that leave us? Worst case, there were 324 innocent, law-abiding people killed in the United States in 2019 by someone using an “assault rifle”. That’s the absolute worst case.
In reality, the number is much, much smaller. Only in a small number of the instances where a rifle was used to kill someone was an “assault rifle” the weapon of choice. And, at least some of the people killed were in the act of committing a crime.
The fact is, more people were killed by someone clubbing them to death than by someone using a rifle. Nearly twice as many people were killed in 2019 by someone simply beating them to death with their fists. Knives were used to cause more than three times the number of deaths than all types of rifles combined.
There are approximately 10 million AR-15 style rifles in the United States and, even if we blame them for every single homicide committed with a rifle, they are used to kill less than 350 people a year.
But, we should ban “assault rifles”. Because they’re obviously a huge problem.
