How do US knife homicide rates compare to other high-income countries by per capita measurements?
Executive summary
The United States records roughly 1,500 knife homicides per year, meaning knife killings are a minority of U.S. homicides while firearms dominate U.S. lethal violence — firearms account for about 79–80% of homicides in recent reporting (knife homicides ≈1,500/year) [1] [2]. International rankings that list "stabbing deaths per country" give per‑capita comparisons but vary in methods; global datasets (UNODC/IHME) are the baseline for per‑100,000 homicide rates while weapon‑specific breakdowns are less consistently reported between countries [3] [4] [5].
1. Knife killings in the U.S.: scale and context
Researchers and public sources converge on the point that more than 1,500 people in the United States are killed with knives each year, making knives the second most common homicide weapon after firearms in U.S. data [1]. That figure sits inside a national homicide environment in which firearms cause roughly four out of five homicides (about 79–80%), so per‑capita knife homicide rates are substantially lower than overall U.S. homicide rates and far lower than U.S. firearm homicide rates [2] [1].
2. How per‑capita comparisons are usually reported
Internationally, the standard comparator is homicide deaths per 100,000 people; datasets such as UNODC or IHME (used by Our World in Data) provide cross‑country homicide rates, but they typically report total intentional homicides, not weapon breakdowns [4] [5]. Sources that attempt “stabbing deaths by country” produce per‑capita knife‑death figures, but those lists rely on variable national reporting and definitions (what counts as “knife” vs “sharp object”) and therefore are not directly comparable to the more consistent total homicide series [3] [5].
3. Direct U.S vs other high‑income countries: what the available sources say
Piecewise comparisons exist: one consumer site cites per‑million figures showing higher knife‑death counts in the U.S. than the U.K. in specific years (e.g., cited rates of ~4.96 per million U.S. vs 3.26 per million UK in a past comparison) but that analysis pools different data years and categories and is not authoritative [6]. WorldPopulationReview and similar aggregators provide country‑by‑country stabbing rates but warn that knife‑share of homicides varies regionally (North America favors guns; Europe favors knives) and that weapon shares do not equate to overall homicide risk [3].
4. Important caveats that change interpretation
Comparing knife homicide rates across high‑income countries is complicated because (a) many official international series report total homicides, not weapon, (b) countries differ in coding “knives” vs “other sharp objects,” and (c) the U.S. homicide context is heavily firearm‑weighted so a lower knife share can coexist with a higher overall homicide rate [4] [3] [2]. Several sources explicitly note that weapon‑specific trends (e.g., rise of firearms percentage in the U.S. since 2021) change the relative role of knives without necessarily changing absolute numbers uniformly [7].
5. Competing narratives and potential agendas in public reporting
Advocacy and media outlets often highlight single metrics: either “knife deaths are rising in X country” or “the U.S. has more knife murders than country Y.” These framings can serve agendas — public‑safety reformers focus on weapon shares to push policing or knife‑control measures, while gun‑rights advocates cite falling or small knife shares to argue firearms are the core problem [3] [7]. User‑facing lists from commercial sites sometimes mix years and definitions, producing seemingly stark cross‑country differences that reflect methodology more than reality [6] [3].
6. What reliable comparison would require (and what is available now)
A robust per‑capita comparison of knife homicide rates across high‑income countries requires: harmonized weapon categories, the same reporting year, and population‑standardized rates (per 100,000). Available authoritative cross‑country datasets (UNODC/IHME) provide per‑100,000 homicide rates but not consistent weapon breakdowns; specialized knife‑death lists exist but use mixed methods and years [4] [5] [3]. Therefore, current reporting can show that the U.S. has ~1,500 knife homicides annually and that knives make up a smaller slice of U.S. homicides than firearms, but it cannot definitively rank U.S. knife‑homicide per‑capita against all high‑income peers without reconciling source differences [1] [2] [5].
7. Bottom line for readers
Available sources make clear: knives kill roughly 1,500 people annually in the U.S., but firearms cause the overwhelming majority of U.S. homicides (≈79–80%), and international comparisons by weapon are inconsistent across datasets [1] [2] [4]. If you want a defensible per‑100,000 comparison of knife homicides between the U.S. and specific high‑income countries, the needed harmonized, weapon‑specific international dataset is not present in the cited sources; researchers must extract national vital‑statistics or police‑coded weapon data for the same years and definitions to draw firm conclusions [5] [3].