It's a good question, and at the heart of it is a gun culture a portion of the population subscribes to (that isn't relevant to homicides).
However...
https://moviechat.org/bd0000082/Politics/628fa76979c6973cb2c985cb/the-right-to-bear-arms-was-talking-about-MILITIAS?reply=629089b4d97d95678b1e5566
Despite the errant focus and rhetoric of the U.S. media, ideologues and politicians, only 2.6% of homicides are confirmed to involve rifles of any type, including so-called “assault” rifles or “weapons of war”, which is the most recent buzzword, while a whopping 45% are handguns, with the rest distributed between unarmed (e.g. hands, feet, etc.) at 4.3%, other weapons (blunt objects, poison, explosives, fire, narcotics, etc.) at 11.4%, bladed weapons at 10.6%, shotguns at 1.4%, and unknown firearms at 23.9%. Even if we assumed every unknown firearm (meaning the report didn’t specify) was a rifle of some type, that’s still just about 27%, but most likely the majority of those are handguns as well, since they’re easily concealed and much easier to get ahold of, both legally and illegally. Nearly twice as many people are killed with fists and feet than with confirmed rifles. Mull that over.
This means handguns probably make up 72% of all homicides. Rifles: 2.6%.
And that 2.6% is all rifles, not just so-called "military style" rifles. "Assault" rifles aren't nearly the problem the media and certain politicians make them out to be. Curtailing them with tighter laws would still help reduce these newsworthy events and save some lives, but that's an extremely small portion of homicides, so in the overall scope would barely make a dent and are statistically speaking largely immaterial (but still worth looking at in my opinion). Just to add some needed perspective to what's become a very skewed conversation. This fixation on semi-automatic high-capacity rifles is barely going to even begin to address the real problem, which is about mutual respect.
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Never believe. Always question. Rebuke belief, a.k.a. bias, a.k.a. groupthink, a.k.a. ideology, the bane of skeptical, logical reason.
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