By Dave Workman
Editor-in-Chief
Stabbings kill more people in any given year, according to the annual FBI Crime Report, than shootings involving either rifles of any kind or shotguns, yet rarely, if ever, do people read or hear about so-called “knife violence,” yet almost daily they learn of some new crime involving “gun violence.”
Tuesday morning, various news agencies were reporting, almost to the level of lamenting, the Department of Health and Human Services’ recent removal of a former surgeon general’s warning that “gun violence” is a public health hazard. As reported by Politico and others, the Giffords “gun violence prevention group” was alarmed that former Surgeon General Vivek Murthy’s June 2024 advisory was “wiped from” the DHHS website.
Second Amendment advocates argue there is no such thing as “gun violence.” There is violent crime involving firearms, but the term “gun violence” seems more about demonizing firearms than placing responsibility for mayhem on the shoulders of the perpetrator. It is a term made up by the gun prohibition lobby for that purpose, asserted Alan Gottlieb, chairman of the Citizens Committee for the Right to Keep and Bear Arms.
“Pick up any newspaper, read any online report involving the criminal misuse of a firearm, and by the time you’re finished, you will have seen at least one reference to ‘gun violence,’” Gottlieb said. “I can only conclude the media has a deplorable double-standard when it comes to reporting homicides involving guns, yet the victims are just as injured or dead.”
When TGM scanned ten stories about recent assaults and homicides involving knives or other cutting instruments, there was not a single mention of “knife violence.”
Police in Portage, Michigan are investigating an assault involving a hatchet. The victim, an unidentified 32-yeare-old man, was hospitalized and a suspect identified as Dennis Baker has been charged with felony assault, according to WWMT News. Perhaps not surprising, the report noted how Baker was arrested about two hours after the hatchet attack “on an unrelated warrant.”
Similarly, in Seattle, police arrested a 50-year-old man following a hatchet attack over the weekend. The victim suffered a serious wound to the neck. Responding officers found the suspect in an apartment nearby, and discovered the alleged weapon hidden under a mattress, according to KIRO News.
Back in the “other Washington,” the DC Witness is reporting how a Superior Court judge has granted a change in pretrial release conditions for a suspect in a fatal stabbing back in November 2022. The suspect, Christian Wilkerson, has been on pre-trial release for more than a year, the DC Witness is reporting.
Up in Schenectady, N.Y., WTEN News is reporting the arrest of a suspect in the fatal stabbing of a woman identified as Amanda Jaikaran, 38. She died from multiple stab wounds. The suspect, Rance White, 52, is charged with “murder and other felonies,” the station reported, without a single mention of “knife violence.”
Out in San Francisco, CBS News is reporting the return of murder suspect Juan Ramirez, 37, who allegedly fled to Mexico following the March 22, 2013 slaying of Sandra Cruzes-Gonsalez in San Jose. Ramirez was apprehended in July 2024 by the International Criminal Police Organization, and he was finally extradited last Friday. Cruzes-Gonsalez was stabbed repeatedly in a parking lot outside of her apartment building.
KNSI Radio is reporting the arrest of a homeless man in the fatal stabbing of 36-year-old Shane Brunner on March 13 in St. Cloud, Minn. The suspect, Marquis Fisher, 25, allegedly stabbed Brunner repeatedly in the back. Brunner died the next day in a local hospital. According to the report, Fisher is charged with one count of second-degree murder and one count of second-degree assault. Once, again, there was no mention of “knife violence.”
An 18-year-old Fort Wayne, Ind., man has reportedly accepted a plea deal in the fatal stabbing of his father, according to WPTA News. The suspect, Ahmed Al-Malahi allegedly stabbed his father, Tawfika Al-Malahi “multiple times in the back, hit him in the head with a piece of metal and cut his throat,” the report said. The plea deal will reportedly earn him a 30-yeasr prison sentence. A sentencing hearing is scheduled April 11, if the plea agreement is approved.
The Allen County, Ohio Sheriff’s Office is investigating a stabbing murder which occurred over the weekend. The victim died from multiple stab wounds, according to WLIO News in Lima. A suspect has been jailed in connection with the investigation, and he is being held without bond, the report said.
Yet another case of “knife violence” is being investigated in Eagle Pass, Texas, according to KSAT News, which also didn’t use the term. The Maverick County Sheriff’s Office arrested a man identified as Alex Lopez, 26, outside of a residence in Eagle Pass, where deputies found the body of Kaylin Nicole Ibarra. She had been fatally stabbed.
Meanwhile, WPVI News in Philadelphia said police in Bridgeton, N.J. are “searching for a Philadelphia man who allegedly stabbed a man to death.” The suspect is identified as Kenneth Tripline. He allegedly broke into the home of his ex-girlfriend, “whom he shares children with,” and confronted her new boyfriend, identified s Elliott Handy. The suspect allegedly stabbed Handy “multiple times,” and he later died at a hospital.
Second Amendment activists have repeatedly noted how guns are singled out by the gun prohibition lobby, their allies in Congress and state legislatures, and by the media, for demonization. Yet knives, as the above reports confirm, are used just as violently and the significant difference in each of these cases is that there are no background checks or waiting periods for knife purchases. Knives are available in hardware and sporting goods stores, gun shops and elsewhere, and in a domestic argument, they’re as close as a kitchen drawer.
While the reports here were definitely violent, not a single mention of “knife violence” can be found. “Sadly,” CCRKBA’s Gottlieb said about gun violence, “newsrooms all over the map have embraced the term, making it part of their vocabulary, to the point that one might find multiple references in a single news report or editorial. Indeed, the frequency one sees ‘gun violence’ mentioned on the air, in print or during political speeches has reached the point of absurdity.”
