Dennis Baxley says knives kill more people than firearms The statement
Following the mass shootings in El Paso and Dayton, the Orlando Weekly contacted state and federal representatives from Central Florida to find out what they thought should be done about gun violence.
One of the written replies caught our attention. Answering a question about whether he would consider any new gun policies, state Sen. Dennis Baxley, an Ocala Republican, answered, “What people don’t realize is we have more homicides by stabbing than we do firearms. I’m still kind of puzzled by this idea that it’s all about what type of weapon they select.”
Is that true? Are more people killed by stabbing than with guns?
The facts
We contacted Baxley’s office to find out his source but didn’t hear back. We also wanted to know if Baxley was talking about Florida or the United States or some other geographic region.
If Baxley was talking about Florida, the Florida Department of Law Enforcement doesn’t support his claim. The agency’s 2018 report showed 1,107 murders in 2018. Of those, 836 were with firearms and 111 were with a knife or some other “cutting instrument.” In the previous year, the FDLE’s report shows 1,057 murders, 791 with a firearm and 118 with knives or cutting instruments.
The FDLE numbers are similar going back to 1995. Never did murders committed with knives approach the number committed with guns.
Conservative media like the Daily Caller and Breitbart have published articles comparing the national statistics that show knives are more frequently used to kill people than rifles — about four times more in 2016.
These stories have been checked by Snopes and PolitiFact, both of which noted that the conclusions relied on comparing some firearms — rifles — with all knives and other cutting instruments.
The 2017 FBI crime statistics reported 15,129 murder victims in the U.S. Of those, 1,591 were committed with knives/cutting instruments, while 667 were killed with firearms known to be rifles or shotguns. Another 3,300 were killed with unknown types of guns, some of which could have been rifles or shotguns.
More important, however, some 7,000 murders were committed with handguns. Add that to the rifle total and you have nearly 11,000 murders committed with firearms and nearly 1,600 committed with knives.
But Baxley didn’t say rifles. He said more homicides were committed with knives than firearms, and both state and national statistics show that’s fake news.
One final caveat: Baxley used the word “homicide,” which is one person killing another person. Not all homicides are murders.
Again, we would like to have asked Baxley about that, but he didn’t respond to emails.
The bottom line
Asked about solutions to gun violence, state Sen. Dennis Baxley said, “What people don’t realize is we have more homicides by stabbing than we do firearms.”
That statement is in direct conflict with state and national murder statistics. We rate his statement Fake.
Rating categories: We rate statements as Fact, Mostly Fact, Mostly Fake or Fake. If you hear or read a statement you want checked, go to orlandosentinel.com/factorfakeform