America saw a significant decrease in the number of homicides involving rifles, a report from the Federal Bureau of Investigation released on Monday shows.
All methods of murder dropped by 7 percent in 2018, and gun murders fell by 6.7 percent, according to the FBI’s Uniform Crime Report. But murders committed specifically with rifles fell by an even greater 23.8 percent.
Additionally, the FBI’s breakdown shows rifles were involved in only 2.8 percent of all murders (297 incidents total). Rifles were used less often to commit murder than knives, fists, and blunt objects. Those findings remained consistent with previous Uniform Crime Reports showing rifles were used in relatively few murders each year.
The FBI lumps all rifles together into a single category and does not break down how many murders were committed with any particular model of rifle. That means AR-15s and AK-47s are included in the overall number of rifle murders. – READ MORE