Bird_Gunner45 said:
https://www.snopes.com/four-times-more-stabbed-than-rifles-any-kind/
Which tends to not work in favour of your argument.
Even though the article points out that a large number of firearms-related homicides are not attributed to any specific firearms type, the vast majority of firearms-related homicides are the result of gang activity in specific neighbourhoods in major cities and the preferred weapons of gang members are pistols, for concealability. Even if the number of rifle-involved homicides doubled or tripled, there would still be more deaths from stabbings.
And, were it somehow possible to remove all firearms from lawful private use, it is highly unlikely that the homicide rate would fall. Those bent on murder are perfectly able to substitute another weapon. As the criminal element would not be influenced by such a mass confiscation, homicide rates would rise if there was any change at all. One can see the indicators of that in Chicago and other large US cities - they tend to have the most onerous firearms restrictions in the US and the highest homicide rates. Remove those cities from the equation and the US homicide rate would look like ours, our gang problems being much, much smaller.
The US does
not have a firearm problem. It has a gang problem, and also a mental health problem - treatment and support being rather more difficult to find there.
And, again, even as the numbers of firearms of all types in private hands has soared, the US homicide rate has fallen dramatically.
That would
not be the case if guns
were the problem.
https://mises.org/blog/fbi-us-homicide-rate-51-year-low (See link for charts, including comparisons between US states and Canadian provinces and territories)
FBI: US Homicide Rate at 51-Year Low
Ask the average American if crime is falling in the United States, however, and you're unlikely to hear about how homicide is at a 50-year low.
Public Unaware that Homicide Rates Have Fallen
As Pew has reported in recent years, in fact, the American public is "unaware" that the homicide rate in the United States has fallen by 49 percent over the past twenty years. And while Pew doesn't report on it, it's also a safe bet that the public is also unaware that homicide rates have collapsed as total gun ownership in the United States has increased significantly.
Over a recent 20 year period, the number of new guns in the US that were either manufactured in the US or imported into the US increased 141 percent from 6.6 million new guns in 1994 to 16 million in 2013. That means a gross total of 132 million new guns were added into the US population over that time period.
Yes, there has been a sharp increase in US homicide rates in the last couple of years, but look exactly where it is happening:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/09/25/politics/fbi-crime-report-2016-homicide-rate/
US homicide rate spiked nearly 8% in 2016, FBI report finds
Communities of different sizes, from rural regions to suburbs to large urban centers, reported an increase in the number of violent crimes. Cities with a population of more than 1 million, the largest population subset measured in the FBI's report, saw the greatest uptick in violent crime at 7.2%. The number of murders in those large cities also soared, by the largest degree between population centers, increasing 20.3% from 2015 to 2016.
Beyond a narrative told by national statistics, violent crime continues to be concentrated in a handful of large cities and experts caution that local nuance is critical to understanding the overall increase.
Chicago alone accounted for about one-fifth of the national increase in murders, according to Adam Gelb, director of the Public Safety Performance Project at The Pew Charitable Trusts. And within Chicago, it's a small number of streets fueling that surge.
"About half of the homicide rise in Chicago took place in five neighborhoods," said John Pfaff, a professor of Law at Fordham University Law School. "Five neighborhoods in Chicago explain 10% of the national increase in homicide rates."
https://www.economist.com/blogs/graphicdetail/2017/02/daily-chart-3
Murder rates in 50 American cities
To help resolve this debate, The Economist has gathered murder statistics for 2016 - fully eight months before they are released by the FBI - for 50 of America’s most violent cities. These areas contain 15% of the country’s population and around 36% of its murder victims. Our numbers show that homicides rose in 35 of them. Since urban trends tend to track national ones, this suggests that the overall murder rate is indeed rising at its fastest pace since the early 1970s. However, today’s violence still needs to be set in historical context. Across all 50 cities, the homicide rate was lower in 2016 than it was in 2007, and for the 26 years before that.
Crunching numbers on 280,000 murder records from 1980 to 2015 shows that among our 50 cities gun use has increased from 65% to 80% of all murders. But that number varies dramatically by city. Guns were responsible for 60% of murders in New York and 85% in Chicago between 2010 and 2015. Although both places have made progress in reducing non-gun-related homicides, Chicago’s gun murder rate is five times New York’s.
Restricting ownership of firearms by private citizens does not reduce violent crime in general or homicides specifically. Those jurisdictions with the most restrictive firearms laws generally have the highest violent crime and homicide rates. There is no national standard for the US. Aside from national laws, laws vary by state, county, and city. That is why detailed and careful comparisons are necessary.
As for the most likely cause of the recent "uptick":
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/may/13/ferguson-effect-real-researcher-richard-rosenfield-second-thoughts
Is the 'Ferguson effect' real? Researcher has second thoughts
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2016/jun/15/ferguson-effect-homicide-rates-us-crime-study
'Ferguson Effect' is a plausible reason for spike in violent US crime, study says
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/01/11/ferguson-effect-study-72-us-cops-reluctant-make-stops/96446504/
'Ferguson effect': 72% of U.S. cops reluctant to make stops