Hammers, Clubs, and Fists: Making Our Streets and Schools Safe
By Melancton Smith • Friday January 4, 2013 6:16 AM PDT • 13 Comments
Over at Breitbart, there is a very good article about the number of deaths caused each year by rifles vs. hammers and clubs. Here is a snippet:
For example, in 2011, there was 323 murders committed with a rifle but 496 murders committed with hammers and clubs. . . .
Another interesting fact: According to the FBI, nearly twice as many people are killed by hands and fists each year than are killed by murderers who use rifles.
Despite the availability of high-powered rifles, good old fashioned sticks and fists do more damage than the rifles many in Congress are working to ban. Cain had no problem killing his righteous brother without an assault rifle, and this holds true for the line of Cain today.
Tags: crime, Culture, Gun Control 
The US Government spent countless dollars teaching many many of us to be a lethal weapon standing naked in an empty room. Do they think that all of these folks have forgotten anything?
Jim Tuggle | Jan 4, 2013 | Reply
Good points all; however, these debates always center around the question of what will make society “safer”. I think that’s a diabolical red herring. I have another (rhetorical) question: Should safety be our foremost concern? Clearly not. Was it the safest course of action for colonialists to square off against their British masters? While plenty of scholarly research supports the contention that more guns equal less crime, our Founders did not acknowledge the individual, natural right to possess and use firearms merely to make society safer, but to make us freer.
Rothbardian | Jan 6, 2013 | Reply
Very cryptic Jim. Please explain further.
Charles N. Steele | Jan 7, 2013 | Reply
Freedom is safety, Rothbardian. It’s a fallacy that they are different things. Safety can only be defined with respect to subjective utility. That which helps one achieve one’s purposes makes one safer, any derailment is a reduction in “safety.” If you disagree, explain how a enslaving someone makes them “safer.”
Charles N. Steele | Jan 7, 2013 | Reply
I am still not 100% sure where I come down on all of this but it does need to be pointed out that while hammers, fists and whatever other red herrings you want to throw out there are designed to build and create assault rifles are designed to destroy.
Just because people can misuse hammers or fists for deplorable aims is in no way the same thing as a device that was created solely to destroy things.
Also, while we are pointing out the obvious problems with this cute example, let us try and remember that there are a hell of a lot more fists and hammers in people’s homes than assault rifles – you can’t compare raw death tolls of different items and try and infer a conclusion without acknowledging that there are far fewer of one thing than another.
Marco Nunez | Jan 8, 2013 | Reply
The assault rifles you talk about are used at shooting contests, hunting, and just family bonding in Montana. They are not designed to destroy they are a tool to be used and in the proper hands can do some very cool stuff. Like bring me and my son together. If a nut takes a tool used to make stuff and kills 20 kids which an adult in a 1st grade class could do, I think with the big city mentality could be done to adults, you won’t come to the aid of a woman being raped. I can see you going after a grown man with a bloody hammer, just pray a good old boy with a gun shows up before he gets to you.
Pat | Jan 8, 2013 | Reply
S Charles, safety through enslavement is easy. I can lock a person up in a cell with 4 walls and no windows. And only I had access. This would keep the person safe. But this is not freedom.
The point of this article is that while yes guns can and do more harm than a hammer or fist, the human heart will do the most damage. It’s not the government’s role to keep us safe, government is there to allow us the freedom to protect ourselves.
No one can guarantee your safety. Bad things will happen to people. When looking for the best ways to keep people safe, one must be careful not to enslave them. Liberty is the most logical means of safety.
Trout catcher | Jan 8, 2013 | Reply
During the 1970s mothers petitioned for the ban on metal lunch boxes due to some children were using them as weapons in fights. All tools of peace can be used for evil in an evil mind person’s hands. I was stabbed by a kindergarten pencil when I was a child by another child who wanted my toys.
No matter it comes down to parents teaching their children about right or wrong. Even if we had laws covering everything we could think of, there will always be that one person who will do wrong due to not being taught.
Jorge | Jan 8, 2013 | Reply
But when you throw in handguns, shotguns and other unknown firearms, the 323 number jumps to 8,583.
The 496 number is all blunt objects (not just hammers), so it would make more sense to compare to all guns, instead of a specific type.
http://www.fbi.gov/about-us/cjis/ucr/crime-in-the-u.s/2011/crime-in-the-u.s.-2011/tables/expanded-homicide-data-table-9
cara | Jan 9, 2013 | Reply
Marco,
You are mischaracterizing the purpose for which “assault” rifles were built. Destroy what? They are used for self-defense, for hunting and for target shooting. That is, to “destroy” criminals, food animals and paper targets. They are not built for destroying law-abiding citizens. That is a misuse of their purpose, just as bashing a law-abiding citizen over the head with a hammer is a misuse of its purpose.
By the way, the AR-15 is not an “assault” rifle. It is a semi-automatic rifle made for civilians that has some similarities to the true assault rifles, such as the fully automatic M-4/M16 military weapons.
David | Jan 9, 2013 | Reply
Don’t let facts get in the way of a good lie. http://www.snopes.com/politics/guns/baseballbats.asp
Bob | Jan 9, 2013 | Reply
The numbers seem to be way off, there were over 8,500 gun related murders in the US in 2011 (no figures for Florida or Alabama) these are FBI figures (source http://m.guardian.co.uk/news/datablog/2011/jan/10/gun-crime-us-state#data). Even narrowing down gun murders to specifically ‘Rifles’ or for that matter ‘automatic Rifles’ this figure seems off and the hammer figure isn’t specific to hammers, it seems to be all blunt instruments. If the gun lobby want to defend their right at least do it with honest figures.
Andrew | Jan 10, 2013 | Reply
Andrew: Keep in perspective that the current aim of the legislative efforts that the underlying article was commenting on dealt with assault rifles. And further arguments that no American needed to own an “assault weapon.” The story from Bretbart pointed out that this latest push to ban high-capacity rifles has no connection with the true danger they have statistically imposed on society. More folks are killed hammers, clubs, etc., (what you correctly describe as blunt instruments) than with rifles. The article made no claim clubs and fists kill more people than handguns.
Melancton Smith | Jan 11, 2013 | Reply