FBI crime stats for 2018 show over five times as many people were killed with knives and/or other cutting instruments than were killed with rifles.

The FBI data shows a total 1,515 deaths by knives and/or other cutting instruments vs. 297 deaths by rifle in 2018.

This means the gap between murders with knives vs. murders with rifles has grown since 2017, for which FBI stats showed nearly four times as many stabbed to death as killed with rifles.

The number of murders with a rifle hovered around 400 for the year 2017, then dropped to 297 in 2018.

Ironically, over 100 more people were killed with hammers and clubs than were killed with rifles in 2018.

It must be noted that the category of rifle includes all kinds of rifles, not just bolt action or semiautomatic, not just pump or lever action. So the gap between knife homicides and rifle homicides or hammer/club homicides and rifle homicides would be even larger if contrasted only with semiautomatic rifles, versus rifles of all kinds.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News, the host of the Breitbart podcast Bullets with AWR Hawkins, and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio. Follow him on Twitter: @AWRHawkins. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com. Sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange.