This article attempts to use statistics in a misleading manner to support a preconcieved notion that “assault weapons” are killing our police officers. A look at the truth shows this to be a lie. To date, there have been 127 police officers killed in the line of duty, according to the “Officer Down Memorial.”
Of those 127 officers, 58 (46%) were killed in vehicle accidents, 2 fell due to a bomb, 3 drowned, 5 through medical causes, one was killed by a tornado, one by a toxic exposure, one from a yellow jacket sting, and one when a pine tree fell on his car after the tree was struck by lightning.
Of the 55 (43%) officers killed by gunfire, 9 (7%) were killed by rifles, 33 (26%) by handguns or shotguns, and in 13 (9%) of the shootings, the type of weapon was not identified in the report, only being listed as “gun, unknown.”
Two of those killed by rifles were mistakenly shot by other police officers, three were shot by “hunting rifles,” one by an M1 Garand (which was not listed as an assault weapon by the 1994 Assault Weapons Ban), and the others were listed as simply “Rifle.” Not one mention of an “Assault weapon” as a single cause of death.
A hat tip to Kim, for alerting me to this article.
For the record, you won't find the word assault used on ODMP to describe any weapons. The memorial aims to preserve factual integrity without politicizing the deaths of officers. Placing assault before weapon or rifle would just be serving somebody's political agenda instead of relaying the facts.
ReplyDeleteI didn't expect it to. There was one that described the Rifle as an M1 Garand. There were many that said "handgun," or "shotgun," and with still others, it was easy to discern the weapon type from the events.
ReplyDelete"Officer was questioning subject. Suddenly, subject surprised officer and shot him." Kinda hard to surprise a cop standing in front of you, if you have a rifle.