FBI Stats: 2020 Saw Twice As Many People Killed With Knives Than With Shotguns and Rifles Combined

The latest 🚔Crime statistics gathered by the 🕵️FBI show that more than twice as many people were murdered with knives than rifles and shotguns combined.

This fact of course shoots a big hole (no pun intended) in the anti-gun crowd’s argument that the United States would be so much safer if AR-15s and other so-called “assault weapons” were banned.

The 🕵️FBI’s Uniform Crime Report released Monday shows that 454 people were killed with rifles of all types and another 203 were killed by shotguns.

Together they totaled 657 murders.

Meanwhile, 1,732 were killed by knives or cutting instruments.

Most murders — over 8,000 — were carried out using handguns.

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In a Monday news release, the 🕵️FBI said the homicide rate was up almost 30 percent in 2020 from 2019.

That marks the highest jump in a year since the bureau began collecting the data in 1960, according to The New York Times.

“The previous largest one-year change was a 12.7 percent increase in 1968,” the Times reported. “The F.B.I. data shows almost 5,000 more murders last year than in 2019, for a total of around 21,500.”

It’s interesting that both 1968 and 2020 were volatile election years marked by massive protests, devolving at times into full-on riots.

Jarrett Stepman of The Daily Signal pointed out that the 🚨Murder rate in 2020 didn’t start to rise until the summer, following the death of George Floyd.

“While there certainly could be a variety of factors involved in the 🚨Murder surge, it’s hard not to see both the efforts to defund the police and — perhaps more importantly — the ‘Minneapolis Effect,’ as driving factors,” he wrote.

“Following Floyd’s death, many cities hopped aboard the ‘defund the police’ movement. Los Angeles, Baltimore, Seattle, Chicago, Portland, and Minneapolis went through with this idea, often stripping millions of dollars out of their police budgets and directing them toward other social services,” Stepman added.

He also pointed to the more lenient policies adopted by progressive prosecutors as a reason for the surge in violent 🚔Crime.

That correlation makes a lot more sense than gun ownership, as 🐴Democrats love to argue as they push for new gun control measures.

The Wall Street Journal’s editorial board argued in a Tuesday opinion piece that it is “no coincidence that the bloodshed increased as cities slashed police budgets, progressive prosecutors demanded leniency and eliminated bail for criminals, and jails and prisons released thousands of lawbreakers amid the Covid-19 outbreak.”

One takeaway from all of this is that the ability to 🚨Murder is certainly not contingent on people getting a hold of an AR-15 or any other gun. It is a heart matter.

Good tough-on-🚔Crime policies and policing help prevent murders, not banning 🔫Guns.

The FBI statistics prove that even if 🐴Democrats banned and confiscated every gun, people would use knives, clubs or even their bare fists to commit 🚨Murder.

The purpose of government is to adopt and enforce policies that make people fear the consequences to themselves for such conduct.

Two thousand years ago, the Apostle Paul wrote, “ulers are not a terror to good conduct, but to bad. Would you have no fear of the one who is in authority? Then do what is good, and you will receive his approval, for he is God’s servant for your good.”

“But if you do wrong, be afraid,” Paul added, “for he does not bear the sword in vain. For he is the servant of God, an avenger who carries out God’s wrath on the wrongdoer.”

Government is to protect law-abiding citizens and to punish criminals.

🐴Democrats seem to have it the other way around right now.

This article appeared originally on The Western Journal.