FBI data on deaths by 'hands, fists, feet' versus rifles – Austin American-Statesman

Jeff Cercone  |  PolitiFact.comViral Facebook post: “More people die from hands, fists, feet, than rifles.”PolitiFact’s ruling: Mostly TrueHere’s why: In the midst of the gun control debate, a data-laden graphic shared on Facebook posits this: rifles are nothing compared to human brawn.”More people die from hands, fists, feet, than rifles. Guess we should ban limbs now…,” reads the May 25 post. Underneath, a graphic titled “Number of murder victims in the Unites States in 2020 by weapon used” shows rifle deaths at 455 and deaths from “personal weapons (hands, fists, feet, etc.)” as 662. The post includes a link to a website called Statista.The post was flagged as part of Facebook’s efforts to combat false news and misinformation on its News Feed.FBI data from 2020 does show that more people died from injuries sustained from other people’s fists, feet and hands than from rifles. But there’s a little more you should know about that data before you use it to draw conclusions.Fact-check: Are most mass shooters ages 18,19?Statista researchers pulled data from the FBI’s Crime Data explorer, which does show that of the 17,813 homicides reported in 2020, 662 of them were committed with “personal weapons” — which the site indeed describes as hands, fists,…
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