PolitiFact Tackles the Vexing Question of Whether Clubs and Hammers are Really Used in More Murders then Rifles

Bryan Preston | 11:10 AM on January 30, 2013

Surprisingly, PolitiFact’s analysis adheres to the facts. That doesn’t always happen. Sometimes they’ll take a claim, fail to refute a single fact in it, yet rate it “Pants On Fire.” That’s fun.

But they rate the claim, tweeted by Texas Attorney General Greg Abbott, that clubs and hammers are used in more murders than rifles, as true.

Yet they still sneak in a sting on Abbott.

Like an older Facebook item, Abbott’s tweet uses data selectively, ignoring the significant role of handguns in gun violence. That said, it is correct that FBI data indicates that in 2011, more people were killed with “clubs and hammers” than with any type of rifle.

Abbott’s tweet was about rifles, because the currenty anti-gun furor is primarily about rifles, and the gun ban being pushed is supposedly about banning assault weapons — i.e. rifles.

PolitiFact, how about analyzing whether the “assault weapons” ban would actually do any good?

Bryan Preston has been a leading conservative blogger and opinionator since founding his first blog in 2001. Bryan is a military veteran, worked for NASA, was a founding blogger and producer at Hot Air, was producer of the Laura Ingraham Show and, most recently before joining PJM, was Communications Director of the Republican Party of Texas.

Category: THE PJ TATLER