FBI: Over Twice as Many Killed with Knives, Cutting Instruments than Rifles

The FBI’s Uniform Crime Report (UCR) shows over twice as many people were killed with knives and other cutting tools than were killed with rifles in 2021.

The UCR shows that 447 people were killed with rifles, while 1,035 people were killed “with knives or cutting instruments.”

The elevated number of stabbing deaths over homicides by rifle fluctuates by degree year to year, with knives and other cutting tools being used in homicides far more than rifles in recent years especially.

For example, Breitbart News noted that the UCR also showed more than 3.5 times more people were killed with “knives or cutting instruments” in 2020 than were killed with rifles. The UCR showed that 454 people were shot and killed with rifles in 2020 while 1,732 were stabbed or hacked to death with “knives or cutting instruments.”

In 2019, the FBI’s UCR indicated over four times as many people were stabbed to death in 2019 than were killed with rifles of all kinds. The figures for 2019 were 375 killed with rifles versus 1,525 stabbed to death with “knives or cutting instruments.”

On September 30, 2019, Breitbart News reported that the FBI’s UCR for 2018 showed a similar finding, with over five times as many people stabbed to death with “knives or cutting instruments” than were killed with rifles.

It is important to remember that the category of rifles includes all kinds of rifles — bolt action, pump action, break action, semiautomatic, and those semiautomatic, which Democrats label “assault weapons.” More people have been stabbed or hacked to death in 2018, 2019, 2020, and 2021 than have been killed with all such rifle types combined.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. AWR Hawkins holds a PhD in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.