Red State - Blue State Murder Gap

In the US, the murder rate in states that voted for Trump is 40% about higher than states that voted for Biden, and the gap is increasing:

from

“The Two-Decade Red State Murder Problem,” Third Way, Jan 27 2023.

via David Firestone in the New York Times, who writes:

The gap is growing, and it is visible even in the rural areas of Trump states.

But this didn’t come up when a Trump ally, Representative Jim Jordan of Ohio, held a hearing in New York in April to blast Manhattan’s prosecutor for being lax on crime, even though rates for all seven major crime categories are higher in Ohio than in New York City. Nor does House Speaker Kevin McCarthy — who tweets about Democratic “lawlessness” — talk about the per capita homicide rate in Bakersfield, Calif., which he represents, which has been the highest in California for years and is higher than New York City’s.

Why is this relevant? Because increasingly I've been seeing conservatives writing that some cities are going downhill -- crime, police issues, drugs, homelessness, decay -- because they have mayors who are Democrats. (And, the subtle allusion is, because many of these mayors are black.)

I'm not implying these mayors are perfect. Just that they're far from singularly responsible for the problems in big cities. In most cases it's state legislatures and governors who determine gun laws (which are increasingly lax, especially in the south, which may be partly or mostly responsible for the murder gap), or money for the homeless or medical care or rehabilitation programs, etc. 

Then there are the policies of neighboring states. Chicago, for example, has some of the strictest gun laws, but most of the guns used in homicides there come from out of state: 

In 2017, a report commissioned by former Mayor Rahm Emanuel analyzed four years of gun tracing data and found 60% of illegally used or possessed firearms recovered in Chicago come from out of state. Indiana was the primary source for approximately one in five such guns. In 95% of cases, the person with the gun was not the initial purchaser.

As always, the situations with respect to crime are far more complicated than the juvenile bullet points that get throw out as soon as the discussion begins.