Civilian Gun Violence in 'Merica

[Abbot Mythos]

This may be what the POSOTUS calls "domestic terrorism." So, it may be time to send those armed federal troops to a blood red and bloody state threatened attacked by an "enemy from within." And, the probability that high school football provoked these acts of senseless gun violence needs to be investigated. Because, of course, in the blood red states, guns are never the problem:     

Mississippi school homecoming celebrations turn deadly as 8 people are killed in separate shootings

[Abbot Mythos]

Here are some 'Merican civilian gun violence statistics I did not know:

America's gun violence epidemic hits particularly hard in Mississippi

"The Hospitality State accounts for half of the 10 U.S. counties with the highest gun homicide rates. Nine deaths after homecoming games last week cast new light on the crisis."

As per this article:

"Nick Wilson, who works as the senior director of gun violence prevention for the Center for American Progress (CAP), told me Tuesday, "Even for me, it was very surprising to see just how much Mississippi and other kind of more rural places top the list" of places with the worst gun homicide rates. Wilson was referring to a list CAP put together using data from hospitals and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The left-leaning think tank found that of the 20 U.S. counties with the highest "annualized gun homicide rate" between 2021 and 2024, 11 counties are rural. Mississippi counties account for eight of the top 20 and five of the top 10. On that list is Washington County, where six people were killed in Leland on Friday night.

Wilson also noted that sociologist James Tuttle uses "Murder Valley" to describe an area of 21 contiguous counties that includes the cities of Memphis, Tennessee, and Jackson, Mississippi, and much of the Arkansas Delta and Mississippi Delta. If the area were its own nation, Tuttle writes, it would have the fifth-highest homicide rate in the world: better than Saint Vincent and the Grenadines and Haiti, which are ranked 6th and 7th, but worse than Ecuador and South Africa, which are ranked 3rd and 4th.

"We talk so much about Illinois," Wilson said, "and Trump sending the National Guard to Chicago, but Mississippi's homicide rate is twice that of Illinois.""

Having grown up in a gun culture, and in an area more rural than what is described in this article, I am shocked by these statistics. Now, where and when I grew up, accidental shootings of the "cleaning their gun," and "not checking for people behind their target," variety were common. But, intentional homicides were extremely rare.