A scene from the Oct. 31 Islamist terror attack in NYC.

(CNSNews.com) -- The use of a vehicle to mow people down in a terrorist attack, as occurred on Tuesday in New York City killing eight people, is not common, according to the U.S. State Department, which documented in a 2016 report that the vast majority of terrorist attacks employ bombs or explosives.

In its 2016 report, National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism: Annex of Statistical Information, the U.S. State Department documented that "the most commonly used tactic in 2016 [terrorist attacks] involved explosives (54%), followed by armed assaults (21%), which almost always involved firearms."

In addition, 10% of the attacks were hostage taking, 9% were attacks on facilities/infrastructure, and 6% were assassinations.

Also, the State Department found that there were "64 unarmed assaults in 2016 -- attacks aimed at harming people, without the use of explosives or firearms."

These "unarmed assaults primarily involved melee weapons, chemical weapons, or vehicles as weapons," said the State Department. There were also 40 hijackings in 2016, largely targeting trucks, buses and cargo ships.

"Each of these tactics," including the vehicles as weapons, "comprised less than 1% of attacks," reported the State Department.

Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) (Screenshot: YouTube)

A spokesman in the office of Rep. Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) commented that "terrorists use car bombs, homemade bombs made from kitchen items, rented trucks, etc., to kill," adding that the "frequency of attacks are not based on type of weapon -- it's the ideology propelling the attacker."

Earlier this year, Rep. Franks introduced an amendment to the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) that would identify various Islamic religious doctrines used by terrorist groups to help the Pentagon to identify Islamic leaders who preach peaceful belief versus those who preach extremist views.

The amendment was defeated in July on a close vote, 217 to 208.