Firearms & Murder: Don't Blame "Assault Weapons"

If you pay attention to American politics, chances are you've noticed a large push by the Obama administration and other Democrats for gun control in various forms. Now, that alone is quite odd because according to a recent Gallup poll only 4% of Americans consider gun control to be an important issue. [1] With (according to the same poll) nearly a quarter of American's saying that that their top concern is the economy and another 18% citing unemployment, why would the embattled Obama administration continue to expend political capital to fight an uphill battle their constituents don't support?

Let's take a step back for a moment and consider what some key players are pushing. As always, Feinstein et al are trumpeting the "assault weapons" ban. For those not in the know, "assault weapon" is a vague category that is generally perceived to include any civilian variant of a military style rifle. Assuming such a ban went through, what sort of results can we expect to see in terms of impact on murder rates? Let's take a look at an excerpt of the FBI's breakdown of murder by weapon for 2012. [2]

Handguns	Rifles	Shotguns	Knives or Cutting Instrument	Blunt Objects	Hands, Fists, Feet, etc.
7,398	453	457	1,694	496	728

The differences between the categories are quite great, with pistols accounting for more than 16 times as many murders as rifles, and knives/cutting instruments accounting for 3.7 times as many. Even murders by hands, fists, etc. exceed rifles. And keep in mind this data is for all rifles, not just "assault weapons". Given data for murders by "assault weapon", the differences would be even greater. Murder by rifle is a non-issue compared to handguns or even knives, yet our policy makers ignore this because handguns fail to evoke the same emotions as evil looking rifles that are frequently depicted in movies and video games. Further, murders by firearm have declined year over year, decreasing 15% between 2007 and 2011, with murders by rifle dropping 28% in the same timeframe. [2] If "assault weapons" really were a problem, wouldn't we see an increase in murders by rifle since the 2004 Assault Weapon Ban expiration?

[1] http://www.gallup.com/poll/161813/few-guns-immigration-nation-top-problems.aspx

[2] http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-8