For as long as we have been keeping records, the most common sort of firearm used in violent crimes in the United States is whatever handgun happens to be in widest use at the time: Back when people were robbing stagecoaches, it was the cap-and-ball revolver; back when people wore fedoras, it was the snub-nosed .38; today, it’s the 9mm automatic. All of the murders carried out with, say, an AK-47-pattern rifle in the United States in any given year will amount to a rounding error, but people enjoy pronouncing the syllables “AK-47” because they sound so interesting and authoritative.
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