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.
Rifles have long been an outlier as far as weapon of choice for murders is concerned. On October 10, 2022, Breitbart News pointed to FBI figures showing over twice as many people were killed with knives and other cutting tools than were killed with rifles in 2021.
Moreover, Breitbart News noted that FBI figures also showed over 3.5 times more people were killed with “knives or cutting instruments” in 2020 than were killed with rifles.
Despite the FBI’s findings and the numbers released by the CDC and highlighted by PEW Research, Democrats in various states, such as Colorado and New Mexico, are working to secure gun bans on various rifles and shotguns, and Democrats at the federal level call for “assault weapons” bans after almost every high-profile gun crime.
AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio, a member of Gun Owners of America, a Pulsar Night Vision pro-staffer, and the director of global marketing for Lone Star Hunts. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and has a Ph.D. in Military History. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly:
