Tenchu's Fifth Rule of Partisan Politics: Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics, and Hyperlinks.
A simple Google search will produce links that show how many people are killed by "assault rifles" every year:
Thousands Of Americans Are Gunned Down Each Year, But Few Die By Assault-Style Rifle | HuffPost Latest News
But as momentum builds for a new assault weapons ban, data shows just how small of an effect such legislation would have on the overall levels of gun violence in the U.S.
At least 84 people have been killed and 119 have been injured so far this year in 86 shooting incidents involving assault-style rifles, according to data compiled by the Gun Violence Archive, a not-for-profit corporation that tracks gun violence. Those numbers include the casualties at Pulse nightclub over the weekend.
There have been at least 267 incidents involving assault-style rifles in 2016, including reported weapons thefts, crimes in which the guns were brandished, arrests for illegal possession and other legal interventions in which they weren't fired.
Those deaths account for about 2 percent of the 6,153 gun deaths and less than 1 percent of the 12,560 gun injuries the Gun Violence Archive has counted so far this year. This tally consists largely of homicides and assaults, but also includes suicides that were part of a murder-suicide. It also counts accidental deaths, the majority of which involve handguns, not rifles. |
