By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Murder in the United States last year jumped an eye-popping 29.4 percent over the number of killings in 2019, and once again, rifles of any kind were used in only a fraction of those slayings, according to data in the FBI Uniform Crime Report.
Violent crime was up overall last year by 5.6 percent, the report said. There were an estimated 17,754 murders, up from the 14,391 reported for 2019.
In 2020 according to the FBI data, 454 rifles were confirmed as the murder weapon out of the 13,620 gun-related homicides listed in the crime report. Another 203 involved shotguns, the data says. Handguns accounted for the most homicides involving firearms, with 8,017 reported. In 4,946 cases, the type of firearm used was not identified.
This raises the question once again, why are anti-gunners so keen on banning so-called “assault rifles” when they are used in relatively few homicides?
More than 1,700 victims died as the result of knife wounds or other cutting instruments. Another 392 were killed with “blunt objects” such as hammers or clubs, and 655 were killed with hands or feet, the FBI report said.
According to the FBI, “The 2020 statistics show the estimated rate of violent crime was 387.8 offenses per 100,000 inhabitants, and the estimated rate of property crime was 1,958.2 offenses per 100,000 inhabitants. The violent crime rate rose 5.2 percent when compared with the 2019 rate; the property crime rate declined 8.1 percent.”
While anti-gunners will possibly seize on this data to correlate the number of criminal homicides to the spike in gun sales last year, there is no information that would lead to such a conclusion. It could just as easily be argued—and perhaps with more credibility—that defunding police agencies and reducing the number of police officers on the street may have been just as responsible because there was less ability to respond to emergency calls.
Last year, an estimated 7.5 to 8 million Americans bought guns for the first time, suggesting more people were suddenly taking responsibility for their own protection.
The COVID-19 pandemic combined with a summer of violent and sometimes deadly protests following the death of George Floyd while being held by police in Minneapolis apparently provided the incentive to make those purchases.
According to the FBI, 15,897 agencies—out of a total 18,619 eligible agencies—submitted data to the UCR program in 2020.
