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. //

knives are used twice as often to kill as rifles in 2021 and 3.5 times more in 2020. //

These kinds of weapons aren't the threat many like to claim. They're not even essential for mass killers to rack up high body counts, as the Virginia Tech killing amply demonstrates.

But they are useful for enabling a population to fight back against a tyrannical government or a foreign invader, which is the whole point of the Second Amendment in the first place.