According to FBI statistics, in 2016, 374 people were murdered with a rifle, while a total of 1,604 were murdered with knives. More than 4 times as many people were killed with knives than with rifles.
Why should we ban AR-15’s and not knives?
© 2026 – SoulSequel
48 responses to “Why should we ban AR-15s and not knives?”
You are just being juvenile now.
Here’s the rather obvious problem with such thinking: Firearms are more lethal than knives, machetes and hammers. Gunshot wounds frequently cause catastrophic damage. And the ability to maintain a quick and steady rate of fire allows a gunman to maximize casualties. There is a reason that American mass killers choose assault-style rifles to carry out their attacks, not knives or hammers.
@Gina
Statistically, knives kill 4 times as many people.
I don’t care about all your stupid attempts to justify banning guns.
The stats are consistent. Year over year knives kill way more people than rifles.
Why should we ban rifles and not knives?
@Weenis Hey Yosemite Sam, I never once said to ban guns.. That’s your talking point. SANE GUN LAWS. That’s what up! So quit your god damned whining. No one is trying to take your cold precious metal. Keep on stroking it.
@Gina
Oh, so you don’t want to ban AR-15’s?
Ggggrrrrrrr.
The Las Vegas Mass Murderer/Terrorist gunman who unleashed hundreds of rounds of gunfire on a crowd of concertgoers attached a “bump-stock” to two of his weapons, in effect converting semiautomatic firearms into fully automatic ones.
Autopsy Case #57 of 58 from the Las Vegas shooting.
Female
Cause of death: Gunshot wound to the back.
The bullet enters the victim’s central upper back, coursing through her spine and chest cavity, before coming to rest in the tissue of her chest. Additional lacerations and abrasions of the face, legs and arms suggest the victim may have been trampled or dragged after collapsing.
“As soon as the bullet gets through the skin and the subcutaneous, it strikes the spine, which destroys the spine, sends fragments through into the lungs and basically destroys the bullet,” said Alphin. “And that’s why you’ve got fragments that exit the thoracic cavity. There’s enough velocity in those fragments that they hit the far rib cage wall and are found.”
https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/las-vegas-autopsy-documents_us_5a8234efe4b01467fcf08b97
@Gina
Appeal to emotion. This is 1 of less than 500 vs 1500+ murders by knife.
Stop being a brainless idiot and think for once.
@Weenis I am trying to make it so no one’s brains get blown out! Come on Yosemite Sam. When was the last mass murder by knife? That’s the topic of discussion.
@Gina
There were multiple in 2017.
Here’s one from 2015 where 50 people were killed in a mass knife attack- http://www.mining.com/fifty-killed-in-a-knife-attack-at-a-chinese-colliery/
Regardless, this is a stupid tangential conversation. Why does it have to be a “mass” murder for it to require our utmost attention?
Doesn’t the OVERALL loss of life mean more than the few instances when more than 4 people are killed?
Why put such focus on such rare events? Isn’t the continued focus and discussion about these events continue perpetuating these events?
The argument falls flat on it’s face because knives are heavily regulated from size to mechanisms.
That kinda argument would let a gun-grab’n advocate say:
If we can ban 2 sticks connected by a chain, why not something that’s been used to kill school children,… more than even knives have.
You 2nd Amendment Posers HAVE NEVER STOOD for the rights of God fear’n Nunchaku Owners, and especially not in the People’s Republik of Arizona, with your ban & your commie flag & your hot air!
@luftballooneyegouge
Knives are not heavily regulated at all.
Some states have some knife laws, but none of those laws prevent the sale of a butcher’s knife, or a big chef’s knife.
In fact, you can go to walmart and buy a 12″ knife for under $50. No
@Weenis
Stop wasting my time. You already know the prohibitions on switchblades.
Your bullshit of trying to equate banning one type of rifle with the banning of all existing knives is just another attempt to justify your goddamn hobby being more important than keeping people from being murdered by others with the same stupid pointless
H O B B Y.
@luftballooneyegouge
You’re correct, I do know, as I have many switchblades and balisongs.
Switchblades and balisongs aren’t federally regulated, they’re regulated by state. I purchased my first balisong, a BM-42, from a knife store in Washington state when I was 16 years old. Old school model, with the t latch.
@Weenis
…and so we have the precedent in this country of condensed hypocrisy that states can, have, and do put up rules banning arms such as the knives that are legal in your state while nunchaku, a weapon with a murder rate about the same as spoons, are banned in your state.
The gun-nut culture is only making it easier to muster support for a 28th Amendment.
@luftballooneyegouge
I’m glad you see things my way, I’m all for legalizing nunchaku’s.
It’s important to keep in mind as well that knives and nunchaku’s aren’t protected items under the second amendment. Also, pretty sure if the second amendment was invoked to overthrow tyranny, any and all weapons are on the table for free use.
The GOP’s answer. A Ban on Numbers.
The Blue Wave is here! The democrats are continuing taking special elections from areas that typically vote republican. Thanks Trump!!!
Grab him in the midterms!!!
God is a bullet.
@Gina
So you’re ok with the 7.5 million AR-15’s that are kept by law abiding citizens? You don’t want to take those ones away, right?
Asking for a friend.
Have mercy on us everyone.
@Gina
So you’re ok with the 7.5 million AR-15’s that are kept by law abiding citizens? You don’t want to take those ones away, right?
Asking for a friend.
Once again, I never said I wanted to take all your toys I mean guns away. I have a reasonable request.
@Gina
Oh good. So you’re ok with the 7.5 million AR-15’s that are kept by law abiding citizens? You don’t want to take those ones away, right?
Asking for a friend.
@Weenis
Sometimes the needs of the many to not to die randomly in public places at the hands of their own people, outweigh the needs of the comparative few who are afraid to be without their just-in-case “super-power”.
One of the dire side-effects of isolating yourself within your borders is that you cannot see that this is problem that the ENTIRE rest of the civilized world doesn’t see in even remotely the same scope that the US sees it.
And the critical factor, are US gun laws.
@griz
Where are “many” people dying? And how are you using this measurement? Based on dying per capita and population density, what leads you to believe it’s “many”?
@Weenis
As @gina4peas shared video very humorously points out, stop trying to baffle us with bullshit. Just admit that you just love your guns and that is that.
And with this first admission of pure truth, perhaps a meaningful dialogue can begin.
@griz
This is childish.
@Weenis
Agreed.
Any caliber of soother is childish.
If you don’t know , congratulations! You are SoulSequel’s “Ideologue of the month”
Your prizes include the fabulous gifts of intellect, rational thought, critical analysis, and clear perceptions. (They were donated by some other NRA ideologue who wasn’t using them at all).
I like guns and knives, and just speak of banning guns usually because I like to get people to think.
Only use knives and collect them, my own self.
Powder guns are too loud and suppressors are a bitch to get. Which is contrary to common sense, but a product of 30s poaching and rich people power.
(Air guns and bow weapons are diff in america…)
Where you get away from the appreciation of the art – of target shooting, accuracy, where the word “sin” is literally a greek archery term for missing the bullseye – you get into abuse.
Fear.
Flesh fear.
God controls all things, but many gun owners are full of fear because they are full of sin.
Guns for the sport, yes. Guns for self-protection — fear based unbelief thinking.
Satanic.
There are more knife victims than rifle victims because there are more knives than AR-15’s. However, there are *only* 1,604 homicides by knives, compared to >11,000 homicides by guns total.
If there are only 7.5 million rifles, but 800 million knives, of course the knives are going to win out statistically. (guestimating number of knives). That’s 2*10^(-7)% knife deaths vs 5*10^(-6)% for rifles, which is one order of magnitude higher for rifles. Therefore, rifles are more lethal.
@georockstar09
The 7.5mil rifles number is only the estimated AR-15 number. The big black scary guns that you kids think kill people.
There are an estimated 600mil firearms total.
@Weenis Yes. 300 million firearms TOTAL. We’re talking about just rifles. Even if you estimate the totality of all assault rifles to be 20 or 30, even 50 million, or even if you take the entire totality of guns, they are still more fatal than knives by one order of magnitude. Even at your estimate of 600 million guns total, there are 11,000 deaths versus 1,600 deaths for similar number of guns and knives.
And I never said I was afraid of them. I don’t go to public schools in the US, nor do I have kids that go there. It’s other people I worry about, and I am angry on their behalf about how unfair it all is. Because some of them are my friends.
@georockstar09
Oh great, let me get this straight, you’re another non-american injecting yourself into our politics and attempting to change our culture?
@Weenis No, I’m an American and I live in the US.
@georockstar09
There’s no point proving which is more effective at killing. Anyone with a brain is going to admit that a gun is better at killing than a knife. What’s important is all the liberals screaming “Not one more!!!” are ignoring the fact that knives kill more people than these rifles here in the united states. If everyone truly cared about the loss of life, then everyone would see that small caliber handguns and knives kill many more people than scary black rifles.
Also, in recent years, heroin just overtook guns in terms of cause of death. Maybe we should ban heroin?
@Weenis So we should tackle the problem of murders that use knives. We should ALSO tackle the murders done by firearms. One problem does not preclude the other.
@georockstar09
I’m still waiting for a real objective recommendation on how we resolve either of these problems. No one has mentioned any.
@Weenis For guns: expand background checks, make mental health assessments before letting people purchase them. This has already been mentioned…
@georockstar09
Mental health assessments don’t work. People are able to pass these all the time.
What do you mean by “expand background checks”? If people who shouldn’t have guns are already able to get guns when they’re run through NICS, how can we effectively expand a system that doesn’t work today?
@Weenis The gov’t is only allowed 3 days to do a background check for a gun purchase. They want to expand it to 10 days.
@georockstar09
Wrong.
Today, I walk in to a gun store, slap cash on the counter, and walk out 20 minutes with a brand new lead slinger.
You should know the law before having an opinion on what to change and how to change it.
@Weenis Laws vary from state to state. You know that.
@Gina
100% I know that. I also know that the states that have the 3 day background check waiting period have some of the highest crime in the country.
It’s not about guns, it’s about people.
Just an FYI…
@immortal_pirate Just an FYI – The vast majority of federal money that Planned Parenthood does receive goes toward preventive health care, birth control, pregnancy tests and other women’s health services.
The main reasons people visit a Planned Parenthood are contraceptive access (31 percent) and STI/STD testing and treatment (45 percent). More than double the number of people visited Planned Parenthood clinics in 2014 for pregnancy tests than for abortion procedures.
While services vary depending on location, men can visit clinics for prostate, colon, and testicular cancer screenings, vasectomies, male infertility screenings, and sexual-health services, among other necessary health treatments. In 2014, Planned Parenthoods nationwide provided vasectomies to 3,445 men.
What does the NRA do for health services? How many people have they fed or clothed?
@Gina
They educate people, and represent their constituents.
Teacher’s response to Trump’s idea on arming teachers: #ArmMeWith