The Myth of Red State Gun Violence – PJ Media

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?

Well, no. Because once you dig a little deeper, and you see exactly which regions of those “red states” are experiencing the most gun violence, the picture becomes clearer. In Mississippi, for example, the most violent per capita of “red states,” there were 844 gun deaths in 2023. But within Mississippi, the area with the most gun violence was Leflore County.

In Missouri, the area with the most gun violence was the city of St. Louis. In Louisiana, the area…