Help with some specific gun statistics and/or facts...

[flatlander937]

Curious if anybody can help me find these, I've either not found anything, or only found questionable sources. Prefer those from federal and/or state statistics database sites.

-How many people have been murdered by assault rifles in the US after year 2000(I found a lot of pre 1995 stuff but that was mostly it).

-How many murders happen from lawfully owned, legally obtained gun owners? Does this number include righteous self defense as well?

-Any idea if any mass murderers or crazies(such as the Aurora, CO guy) grew up in a household with firearms present?

-Are "good shoots" counted towards the "homicide by firearms" statistic by the FBI? Any idea how many there really are?

Basically I want a really good source to have some links ready for some actual facts for debates and crap on FB.

This was from another guy's thread, but it was a great link to start with:

http://www.justfacts.com/guncontrol.asp

Remember, I want facts with credible and non-biased sources! Thanks in advance!

Between juggling my 11hr/day work schedule and having a new baby at home, if I ever happen to find time, I'll attempt to compile them together into this first post. If a mod deems something worthy, they're welcome to do so as well

 

[hso]

murdered by assault rifles

You're going to have to sort out your terminology. An assault rifle is selective fire and you won't find they've been used in murders.

How is a self defense a murder and how can the two be confused?

There aren't too many biographies of these people around.

Homicides include everything. Firearms homicides contain every death due to firearms. The data is further parsed into suicides, self defense, LE shootings and murder. What you want is the murder data.

Look at the Resources page in Activism.

 

[Telekinesis]

I believe there's a PDF floating around called "Gun Facts" or some variation thereof. The last time I saw it was a few years ago, but it had some pretty good (albeit basic) explanations of the statistics.

Typically the FBI statistics break the weapons down into handgun, rifle, and shotgun; there is no breakdown of assault rifle versus hunting rifle. Not that it matters anyway, the last time I checked, ALL rifle types accounted for less than 1% of firearm related homicides making it almost statistically insignificant. Also as HSO said, you need to define your terminology. By definition an assault rifle is select fire, and I only know of 2 or 3 homicides with legally registered machine guns since 1934, and I believe at least one was committed by a LEO and another was ruled justified (I forget the guy's name, but a HK employee who had a Ruger AC 130).

Also, good luck on the facebook angle. I've found that its just not worth it to argue with people who are so emotionally tied to a belief, at least until they calm down a bit and are willing to have a rational conversation. At a certain point, you just have to know when to drop it.