Hawkins: Activists Cite ‘Homicide Rates’ to Avoid Gun Control Failures

FILE-In this July 7, 2014 file photo, Chicago police display some of the thousands of ille
AP Photo / M. Spencer Green, File
AWR Hawkins

Activists seeking restrictions on the Second Amendment are fond of citing “homicide rates” instead of raw homicide numbers. They do this because it allows them to skirt any admission of gun control failures in blue states.

California’s pro-gun control Gov. Gavin Newsom (D) provides a good example of the left’s propensity to use “rates” to avoid the use of raw numbers.

On May 13, 2023, he tweeted: “It HAS to be the humidity. Why else would California’s gun violence rate be 57% lower than Florida’s?”

That tweet, coupled the Newsom’s ongoing push for more gun control alongside criticism of Florida laws like constitutional carry, concealed carry, etc., appears designed to give readers the impression California’s gun control keeps people safe while Florida’s pro-2A costs more lives.

But here are the raw statistics: Number of homicides in California during 2021 was 2,495, according to the Centers for Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Homicide Mortality map.

The CDC’s Homicide Mortality map shows the number of homicides in Florida in 2021 was 1,468.

Since it is not a good gun control argument to admit Florida had over 1,000 fewer homicides in 2021 than did California, the left pivots and presents Florida’s homicides as a “rate,” allowing them to present 1,468 as a bigger percentage of Florida’s nearly 22 million persons population than 2,495 was of California’s nearly 40 millions persons population.

Lost in this shift is the fact that over 1,000 more people were killed in gun-controlled California in 2021.

Moreover, the standardization of reporting “rates” instead of raw numbers allows the CDC to rank pro-2A Kentucky has having a homicide death rate of 9.6 for 2021 while giving California a rate of 6.4. Overlooked in this rank and rate approach is the fact that California had over 2,000 more homicides in 2021 than did Kentucky.

To put it in a way the left may better understand: Kentucky’s 408 homicides in 2021 represents less than 80 percent of the number of homicides witnessed in California.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010 and he holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.

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