Most N.C. gun deaths are from handguns

By Thomasi McDonald
thomasi.mcdonald@newsobserver.com
Posted: Sunday, Mar. 03, 2013

RALEIGH - ... For the decade ending in 2011, handguns accounted for more than 81 percent of all firearm homicides in North Carolina in which the type of weapon was known, according to the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services.

Rifles, which include the assault weapons that have dominated the political debate, accounted for about 7.2 percent during the same period, the agency reported. Shotguns accounted for more deaths than rifles.

Few of the 2,849 people shot and killed in the state during that decade died in the kind of massacres that make the national news. Most died one or two at a time in near-anonymity, with the kind of guns that haven’t surfaced as a focus in the current debate.

Assault rifles are relatively rare in gun crimes in North Carolina. Earl Woodham, a spokesman with federal Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives in Charlotte, cites the size of handguns as a big reason for their more frequent use in crimes ...

http://www.charlotteobserver.com/2013/03/03/3890813/most-nc-gun-deaths-are-from-handguns.html