It's all in the...
Numbers and how they are attributed...
One statistic that the gun-control crowd loves to toss around is that gun violence is highest in deep red states and lowest in deep blue states. And statistically speaking, they're correct. Per the CDC, the states with the highest per capita rates for gun murders are Mississippi, Louisiana, New Mexico, Alabama, and Missouri. The states with the lowest rates are Rhode Island, Massachusetts, Hawaii, New Jersey, and New York.
So what's going on here? Is this simply a systemic problem of violent, gun totin', insurrectionist inbreds barreling through the backwoods in their pickup trucks, yeehawing and looking for my-NAHR-uh-ties to shoot? Could the coastal elites, for once, have the facts on their side?
The CDC chart is HERE, the full article is HERE.
At the ten thousand foot view, it is correct, but when you drill down into specific demographics by location, the attribution falls apart. Take those locations out of the equation, and the state numbers drop significantly.
In a slight digression, Ammo.com has done a deep dive into murders by weapon type, HERE. In Mississippi, 91% of homicides are by guns. Look at Lenoir Co, and I'll be it is right at 100%.
Just like Chicago numbers are ignored by the MSM, and Baltimore, and certain sections of DC...
Yes, there are huge problems, no question. WAY too many people die by homicide, but guns are just ONE of the ways murder is committed. Allowing murders to walk free, illegals who ran here to get away from a murder charge in their home countries, etc. all play into this, as does blaming teh 'gun' and never the perpetrator for the action. The media also selectively 'covers' murders as we all know. If they 'fit' the agenda, they get coverage, if they don't they are buried quickly, with justice and actual reporting taking a back seat to agenda.
Another thing I believe plays into it is the lack of family structure, religion, and taking responsibility for one's actions. All of those things are the anathema of the left/dems and their base proves that almost daily. Also, the lack of justice/punishment means there is no deterrent to repeating those actions.
The education system is not blameless either, with the 'limitations' placed on discipline of students, lack of school resource officers, and the antipathy of many educators when it comes to stopping students from acting out.
For example my granddaughter age 7, was harassed and choked by another female in the class more than once. This girl also threatened other students, including with teacher's scissors. NOTHING was done by the teacher or the school administration until my daughter filed a police report on it, and at that point, my granddaughter was (according to the school principal) determined to be the instigator! Only after another child and her mother stepped forward, was anything done... Apparently, they simply moved the offender to another school.
Things need to change, but I believe the first thing that has to happen is perpetrators are made to take responsibility for their actions and have to be punished for those actions, regardless of ethnicity, country of origin, or religious preference. And these punishments have to act as a deterrent to them and their ilk ever doing those things again. The next thing is allowing/requiring parents to be actively involved in raising their children, preferably in a 2 parent household, hopefully with at least some religious context, and getting the school system out of raising the children. Their job is education!
It will take a least a generation for even those simple steps...what comes next???
I'm all in favor of getting the public school system out of the job of raising children, but as long as a parent is sticking his child into the public propaganda/indoctrination system, the child is effectively being raised in and by that system. Think about it; the child spends eight hours at least in the system, during the waking hours, leaving about four hours at home in the evening. Of course, there's homework and "entertainment", so the effective parent/child interaction time is about an hour, at most. Is it possible to make up for that on weekends or during summer? Maybe, but it all gets erased between Monday through Friday, September through May. Homeschooling is the best, and select private education is a distant second. The last place a parent should want to put his child is in public school.
It’s been nearly a decade since I last looked, but back then the strongest correlation to actual criminal activity using firearms was to education. The lower the level of education attained the higher the gun crime rate. Places like Hawaii and Vermont would vie with the Dakotas for fewest murders. And even with the smaller population North Dakota was always in the bottom three by rate because half of the murders here didn’t involve guns.