XPost: alt.fan.rush-limbaugh, talk.politics.guns   
   From: mail-a-lffong@hmn.com   
      
   I just want more dead Americans.   You're not killing eachother quick   
   enough.   
      
   Charlie Kirk's Assassination Is Part of a Trend: Spiking Gun Violence in   
   Red States   
      
   A salesperson takes an AR-15 rifle off the wall at a store in Orem, Utah,   
   U.S., on Thursday, March 25, 2021. Two mass shootings in one week are   
   giving Democrats new urgency to pass gun control legislation, but   
   opposition from Republicans in the Senate remains the biggest obstacle to   
   any breakthrough in the long-stalled debate. Photographer: George   
   Frey/Bloomberg via Getty Images   
   A salesperson takes an AR-15 rifle off the wall at a store in Orem, Utah,   
   on March 25, 2021. Photo: George Frey/Bloomberg via Getty Images   
      
   Alain Stephens is an investigative reporter covering gun violence, arms   
   trafficking, and federal law enforcement.   
      
   Conservative America was shaken this week when Charlie Kirk, a prominent   
   ally of President Donald Trump, was shot and killed during a campus event   
   at Utah Valley University.   
      
   The incident recalls a disturbing pattern: Even the champions of “pro-gun”   
   politics are not immune to America’s epidemic of gun violence.   
      
   Just last year, Trump narrowly survived an assassination attempt at a   
   Pennsylvania rally. Four decades ago, Ronald Reagan was shot and nearly   
   killed by a would-be assassin. More recently, in 2017, a far-left gunman   
   opened fire on Republican members of Congress at a baseball practice,   
   critically wounding House Majority Whip Steve Scalise. From Gerald Ford,   
   who survived two separate assassination attempts in one month in 1975, to   
   local GOP staffers dying in common gun crime, the list of right-wing   
   political figures hit by gun violence is a long one.   
      
   These bloody episodes underscore a grim irony: The very politicians and   
   pundits who promulgate expansive gun rights and tough-on-crime rhetoric   
   have repeatedly found themselves on the receiving end of bullets.   
      
   These attacks have grabbed headlines, but there are other conservative   
   victims of gun violence whose stories often go unmentioned — many of them.   
   They are the rank-and-file of the GOP, the voters who put the elected   
   officials in office and follow the likes of Kirk on social media.   
      
   It is the residents of conservative America — the so-called “red states” —   
   who are suffering the heaviest toll in daily gun deaths.   
      
   Despite rhetoric painting liberal big cities as lawless war zones, the most   
   dangerous places in America in terms of gun violence are often deep-red   
   states and rural towns.   
      
   Federal health data reveal that states with conservative leadership   
   consistently have higher firearm death rates than their blue-state   
   counterparts.   
      
   In 2021, eight of the 10 states with the highest gun death rates per capita   
   were won by Trump in the 2020 election. Mississippi — with a staggering   
   33.9 per 100,000 firearm death rate, the worst in the nation — voted   
   solidly Republican. By contrast, states with the lowest gun death rates —   
   like Massachusetts, at 3.4 per 100,000 — reliably vote Democratic.   
      
   This pattern holds nationwide. Public health research confirms that states   
   in the South and Mountain West with weaker gun laws and higher gun   
   ownership have the highest gun death rates, whereas Northeast states with   
   strong gun safety laws see far fewer deaths.   
      
   In other words, the “gun-friendly” policies of red America correlate with   
   more funerals and grieving families, year after year.   
      
   Crucially, this gap isn’t just about suicides in isolated areas; it extends   
   to violent crime and murders as well. A recent analysis of homicide data   
   found that the murder rate in Republican-voting states — such as   
   Mississippi, Louisiana, and Alabama — was 33 percent higher than in   
   Democratic-voting states in both 2021 and 2022.   
      
   Even when researchers control for big urban centers, the red-state murder   
   problem persists. Remove the largest city from every red state, and their   
   homicide rate still far exceeds that of blue states.   
      
   The notion that “Democrat-run cities” alone drive violence collapses under   
   scrutiny. People are statistically safer in New York City or San Francisco   
   than in many rural or Southern Republican-led states.   
      
       People are statistically safer in New York City or San Francisco than   
   in many rural or Southern Republican-led states.   
      
   A groundbreaking study also found that firearm fatalities are now more   
   likely in small rural towns than in big cities — a reversal of historical   
   trends. Thanks largely to soaring gun suicides, the most rural counties   
   experienced overall firearm death rates 25 percent higher than the most   
   urban counties in recent decades. That means the archetypal “American   
   heartland” — often solid Republican territory — quietly endures a higher   
   per-capita burden of gun death than metropolises like Los Angeles or New   
   York.   
      
   The carnage encompasses tragic self-inflicted shootings, domestic violence   
   with firearms, and, yes, the mass shootings that now regularly strike   
   church gatherings, small-town Walmarts, and school classrooms in   
   conservative communities.   
      
   No corner of the country is spared, but red America is bleeding most.   
      
   Why do those who govern the most gun-afflicted states seem least inclined   
   to acknowledge the crisis?   
      
   Republican leaders have long styled themselves as the party of “law and   
   order,” yet they preside over what one analyst dubbed a “red state murder   
   problem.” They champion the Second Amendment as a sacred pillar of freedom,   
   but fail to target root causes that contribute to homicide and suicide   
   rates that dwarf those in other advanced nations.   
      
   The Trump administration’s response to violence has instead been to deploy   
   federal agents into conducting roving patrols in democratic strongholds   
   such as Washington to help enforce some of the country’s most restrictive   
   gun laws. Meanwhile, Trump and the GOP are hobbling the Bureau of Alcohol,   
   Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives by leaving it without a leader;   
   legalizing fully automatic simulation devices; and cutting key research   
   into understanding and preventing violence.   
      
   It’s a cruel paradox. The right wing’s permissive gun policies have   
   boomeranged to haunt their own constituents and politicians.   
      
   When even a figure like Kirk — who once declared that more armed citizens   
   make us safer — ends up bleeding from a bullet wound, it highlights how   
   indiscriminate and all-encompassing America’s gun scourge has become.   
      
   The victims are subsequently left with no solace. This year, the Trump   
   administration shut down the White House Office of Gun Violence Prevention   
   and slashed $158 million in gun violence prevention grants.   
      
   Rather than face the uncomfortable reality that easy access to firearms,   
   poor gun trafficking controls, and under-resourced research is fueling more   
      
   [continued in next message]   
      
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