There is some coverage of this number, which varies quite a bit from year to year. The number being shown is 33, but that appears to include one accident. The trend is down, though not as much as the homicide rate in general. It is clear that the number of citizen owned guns is not linked to the number of police killed with guns. While the number of guns in the hands of the public has soared, and the number of people legally carrying firearms has skyrocketed, crime is down, homicides are down, and then number of police murdered with guns is down.
The public has been on a buying binge for semi-automatic rifles, such as the AR-15, which has become the most popular rifle in America after the "assault weapon ban" lapsed in 2004, and especially since 2008. From 1995 to 2004, during the "ban", the number of police murdered with guns averaged 58.1 officers per year, from 2005 to 2013, after the "ban" lapsed, the number averaged 51.6 per year.
This is not surprising. Rifles are seldom used to murder, and semiautomatic rifles, while very popular, are a minority of all rifles. Hands and feet are used to murder twice as often as rifles are.
Three of the police murdered with firearms in 2013 were killed by a former police officer bent on revenge for perceived corruption in the Los Angeles Police Department.
The number of police killed while on duty, from antebellum times to present, are on this website.
©2014 by Dean Weingarten: Permission to share is granted when this notice is included.
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2 comments:
How many in that number were suicide?
How many were killed by their partner?
How many in that number were killed by their peace officer spouse?
Yeah I'm sure cops are thrilled, but never mind all the innocent people they murdered.
No tears for dead cops as far as I'm concerned. The 2nd amendment exist to protect us from them
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