TexasCHLforum.com

Armed private citizens fatally shot 334 people last year, continuing a gradual upward trend in the United States while the number of justifiable homicides by police declined, and murders also dropped, including those involving firearms, according to the FBI Uniform Crime Report (UCR) for 2019.

The report was released Monday but was overshadowed by presidential politics, including the release of President Donald Trump’s tax history.

Remarkably, the 334 criminal suspects killed by private citizens equals the number killed by police, the FBI report said. While police reportedly committed 340 justifiable homicides in 2019, private citizens killed 386 suspected felons during the commission of a felony, the FBI said.

Once again, data shows a fraction of all homicides were committed with rifles of any kind, or shotguns. According to the FBI, last year saw an estimated total of 13,927 murders, of which 10,258 involved firearms. But of all those slayings, rifles of any kind (including semi-autos, lever- and bolt-actions, and single-shots) were identified as the murder weapon in only 364 cases. Shotguns were identified as the weapon of choice in 200 other cases.