Bernie gets to be the poster child for this one because he's been big in the anti-gun, pro-gun control/banning guns movement. We've been told by the liberals that we need to ban the so called assault rifles because the only thing those weapons an be used for are killing people. These tools are only used in mass murders or killing other people; never in defense of one's person or property or in target shooting contests... you know the mantra.

The FBI has released its 2014 list of crime statistics and there are some interesting revelations in the data that is gleaned from crimes in the states and the Virgin Islands & Guam. Not sure why those two territories are included and Puerto Rico is apparently omitted but that's how they compiled the report.

At any rate, there were 11,961 murders in the United States last year. 8,124 of them were committed using firearms of all types; handguns and rifles. It's interesting to note a couple of things, the total number of murders has dropped once again. That makes 5 years in a row, the high in 2009 was 13,752 murders and it's dropped steadily each year since then. In 2009, 9,199 murders were committed using firearms of all types. And it's dropped pretty much each year since then; in 2012 that number jumped up about 250 deaths but it's still a declining trend.

It's interesting to note that murders by rifles, which include the liberal created category 'assault rifles', account for only 248 of the 8,124 murders committed by firearms. That's something like 3% of all firearm related murders involved a rifle.

Let's put that into context a bit; about 1400 people were murdered using knives or other cutting instruments. 660 murders were committed using only a person's hands and/or feet. You're telling me that more than 2 1/2 times as many people were killed using only a person's appendages than were killed using all rifles?! I thought there was an epidemic of people using assault rifles to commit murder and create mayhem. Once we're done banning assault rifles, maybe we should handcuff and shackle everyone so they can't use their hands and feet to kill others.

Of course this won't deter the anti-gun crowd from continuing their efforts to ban guns. In fact, I'm sure they'll use the stats about handguns being involved in 5000 plus deaths to justify their plan to take away all guns. Then they'll go for knives or other cutting instruments, like scissors or scalpels... think about that next time you need surgery.