Television crime shows continue to portray frequent murders with machine guns. The Crime Prevention Research Center has repeatedly shown that these depictions are far from reality, yet many shows still suggest that criminals regularly use such weapons.
In reality, criminals almost never use machine guns. A 2016 survey of prison inmates reported firearm use in crimes as 11.2% for handguns, 0.8% for rifles, and 1.1% for shotguns. The survey found so few rifle cases that it did not even separately identify fully automatic weapons. Similarly, FBI Uniform Crime Reports show that rifles of any type account for 2.6% of murders, while only 0.3% involve unspecified “other guns.”
There is a clear reason for this rarity. Since 1934, there has been only one known case of a civilian using a machine gun to commit murder. Even before 1934, such incidents were extremely uncommon.
CBS’ Tracker (Season 4, Episode 1, October 4, 2026) depicts criminals firing machine guns.
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