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"'Assault weapons' are the weapon of choice for criminals"

The Narrative

"Military-style 'assault weapons' are the weapon of choice for killers. Ban them and you'll stop the slaughter."

Verdict: Not supported by the data. The FBI's homicide tables don't even track "assault weapons." They track rifles of all kinds, and rifles of all kinds appear in fewer murders each year than hands, fists and feet. The Justice Department's own study of the 1994 federal ban found that "assault weapons" were used in a small fraction of gun crimes.

The record: FBI Expanded Homicide Data, Table 8

Murder victims by weapon, United States:1

Weapon 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024
Total murders (with supplemental data) 18,934 16,779 20,306 18,624 15,795
Handguns 8,649 6,771 8,343 7,451 6,246
Firearms, type not stated 5,018 5,366 5,958 5,512 4,565
Knives or cutting instruments 1,806 1,223 1,720 1,638 1,566
Personal weapons (hands, fists, feet, etc.) 726 586 752 744 633
Rifles (all types) 490 464 570 533 401
Blunt objects (clubs, hammers, etc.) 426 290 404 340 283
Shotguns 215 173 198 170 149

Key points:

  • In 2024, rifles of every kind, including bolt-action deer rifles, lever guns, .22s and AR-15s, were listed in 401 of 15,795 murders (2.5%). Over 2020–2024, rifles averaged 2.7% of murders (2,458 of 90,438).1
  • In every year shown, more people were murdered with hands, fists and feet than with rifles. Knives outnumbered rifles every year too, by nearly four to one in 2024 (1,566 vs. 401).1
  • Where the firearm type was reported in 2024, handguns made up about 87% of firearm murders and rifles about 5.6%. (Our arithmetic from Table 8: 6,246 and 401 out of 7,152 firearm murders with a stated type.)1

Caveat: the FBI table also has a large "firearms, type not stated" row (4,565 in 2024). Some of those were surely rifles. Even if they were split in the same proportions as the known cases, rifles of all types would still be only around 4% of murders. (Our estimate, for illustration only.)

The record: the Justice Department's own study

The 1994 federal ban required a study of its effects. The National Institute of Justice-funded final report (Koper, 2004) found:2

"AWs were used in only a small fraction of gun crimes prior to the ban: about 2% according to most studies and no more than 8%. Most of the AWs used in crime are assault pistols rather than 'assault rifles.'"

And on what renewing the ban would accomplish:

"Should it be renewed, the ban's effects on gun violence are likely to be small at best and perhaps too small for reliable measurement. AWs were rarely used in gun crimes even before the ban."

What's left out, on both sides

To be fair, the same report notes that "assault weapons" and guns with large-capacity magazines "tend to account for a higher share of guns used in murders of police and mass public shootings, though such incidents are very rare."2 Those events are horrifying and get wall-to-wall coverage, and that's a big reason the public thinks these rifles drive gun crime. The everyday numbers say otherwise. Most murders involve handguns, and the "assault weapon" category is defined mostly by looks (see The "Assault Weapon" in our Myths & Legends section).

Bottom line

By the FBI's own count, more Americans are murdered with hands, fists and feet than with rifles of any kind. That includes the subset of rifles politicians call "assault weapons." Banning commonly owned rifles targets the firearms least used in murder, owned by tens of millions of people who never misuse them. The Supreme Court will hear argument on that question this term.3

  1. Federal Bureau of Investigation, Uniform Crime Reporting Program, Expanded Homicide Data Table 8: Murder Victims by Weapon, 2020–2024 (prior years as updated by FBI), via the FBI Crime Data Explorer: https://cde.ucr.cjis.gov/. Copy of the table PDF as reproduced by Gun Owners of America: https://www.gunowners.org/wp-content/uploads/FBI_UCR_Expanded_Homicide_Data_Table_8_Murder_Victims_by_Weapon_2020-2024-1.pdf. FBI 2024 summary ("Reported Crimes in the Nation, Quick Stats"; 74.2% of homicides with weapon data involved firearms): https://hrc-prod-requests.s3-us-west-2.amazonaws.com/assets/images/Reported-Crimes-in-the-Nation-Quick-Stats.pdf ↩↩↩↩

  2. Koper, Christopher S., with Woods, D. J., and Roth, J. A. An Updated Assessment of the Federal "Assault Weapons" Ban: Impacts on Gun Markets and Gun Violence, 1994–2003. Report to the National Institute of Justice, U.S. Department of Justice, June 2004 (NCJ 204431), pp. 1–3: https://www.ojp.gov/pdffiles1/nij/grants/204431.pdf ↩↩

  3. Supreme Court of the United States, Docket No. 25-238, Viramontes v. Cook County (cert. granted June 30, 2026; consolidated with No. 25-566, Grant v. Higgins). Question presented: "Whether the Second and Fourteenth Amendments guarantee the right to possess AR-15 platform and similar semiautomatic rifles": https://www.supremecourt.gov/docket/docketfiles/html/public/25-238.html. Argument date (Dec 2, 2026) per SCOTUSblog: https://www.scotusblog.com/cases/viramontes-v-cook-county/ ↩