The Numbers Matter

I like statistics because they often tell a story. 

If your neighbor was brutally killed in 2018.....he was five times more likely to die from knife attack, than a rifle bullet.

The FBI put the statistics for 2018 in the last couple of days, and it's an amazing story.

1,515 people died from knives in America....while only 297 died from a rifle round, for all of 2018.

In fact, if you use 2017 data.....almost a quarter of rifle round victims were carved off the 2017 situation compared to 2018. 

So here's the real shocker.....more than a hundred more people died by baseball bats/blunt objects in 2018, than by a rifle round.

But let's dig deeper.  If you collect data and look purely at metropolitan or urbanized areas....there were 14,428 murders or manslaughter episodes out of the total across the entire US of 16,214.  Wanna look at the two other areas (small towns, or rural areas)?  711 murders were in small towns, and 899 in rural areas.  So if you live inside the beltway of some urbanized area.....your odds of murder go up.

Murders in Alabama for 2018?  Just two qualified for outright murder....both by pistols.

Murders in Idaho total for 2018?  32.  But only 16 were by rifle or pistol.  Four died by knife, and one by fist or kicking of feet.

From California?  24 died by rifle, but here's the shocker....252 were by knives.  Ten times the number as rifles. 

So all this anti-gun chatter focused?  No.....it lacks focus to a great extent.  It'd be more effective to prevent murders in highly urbanized areas by having stop-and-check police blockages, and ask people to step out of the car while we examine the contents.  Confiscation of knives in public places?  Why not? 

Our total focus, based on the numbers....ought to anti-murder.