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Why Republican Governance Sucks, Part 6: Gun Death Rates [1]
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Date: 2025-02-02
So far in this series we’ve seen that states led by Democrats are healthier (lower rates of maternal and infant deaths, greater longevity), wealthier (less poverty, better wages), and wiser (better schools, higher levels of education), which I called the Ben Franklin trifecta, and most recently, safer (lower murder rates).
This week, I’d like to expand on safety by looking at gun-related death rates. There are two major contributors to gun deaths, homicide and suicide, but accidental gun deaths also occur as well. So these rates are influenced by multiple variables: crime, mental health and well-being, and gun access in general. There are more suicides by firearm than homicides in the U.S. each year.
Using CDC data, the Violence Prevention Center tabulated state firearm death rates for 2023. We’ll do our usual best-10 and worst-10 look at the data; rates are deaths per 100,000 residents.
10 states with lowest firearm death rates, 2023:
Massachusetts 3.7 New Jersey 4.6 New York 4.7 Rhode Island 4.8 Hawaii 4.9 Connecticut 6.2 California 8.0 Minnesota 8.9 New Hampshire 9.6 Iowa 10.5
9 blue states, 1 red. Next up: the worst.
10 states with highest firearm death rates, 2023:
Mississippi 29.4 Louisiana 28.3 Alabama 25.6 New Mexico 25.3 Alaska 23.5 Tennessee 22.0 Arkansas 21.9 Montana 21.5 Wyoming 21.5 Missouri 21.4
9 red states, 1 blue.The states with the very highest firearm death rates have a rate an astonishing 6 times higher than those with the very lowest. This reflects both the higher murder rates and easier and more widespread access to guns in those states, which facilitates suicide. Between the gun deaths, the murder rates, the shorter life spans, and the higher maternal and infant mortality, the red states are looking less and less desirable as places to live.
I’ll continue to explore other aspects of well-being in blue and red states as we move forward (feel free to suggest topics in the comments). Meanwhile, it’s worth noting that the Trump administration may move to make some statistics harder to access or else stop reporting them entirely. Take a look at the picture at the top of the diary and the boxed notification that appears there.
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