The murder of rapper Young Dolph in Memphis, Tennessee is hardly the first time a rapper was killed. In fact, it seems to be almost endemic in that particular music genre. While artists from other styles of music have also been murder victims, it seems to happen a lot more often in hip hop for various reasons.

Regardless of why he was gunned down, the fact remains that he was. It also seems that his murder is drawing a lot of attention toward Tennessee’s gun laws and the murder rate in Memphis.

The murder of rapper Young Dolph in his hometown of Memphis, Tennessee has raised many concerns about the cities rising murder and crime rates. Why are so many young black children being killed on the streets of Memphis?

According to WREG, as of Nov. 8, there have been 268 homicides in Memphis which is outpacing the cities record-breaking murder count from 2020. But it’s not just an uptick in murders that has the community on edge. Over the last three months, there have been more than 1,800 aggravated assaults, 100 carjackings, and 500 robberies. As of November, the Memphis Police Department has responded to 15,000 shootings.

Some in the community are pointing to Tennessee’s new gun law which allows a person to open carry or concealed carry a handgun without a permit.

The law, which went into effect July 1, also eliminates all training requirements needed to carry a handgun in the state. There are still places guns are not permitted such as schools and parks, but the new law will remove the misdemeanor offense one would receive carrying a handgun without a permit. It also allows for a permit-less loaded handguns or ammo to be left in a vehicle.

These conditions have led to more senseless crimes and loss of life that could have been avoided. Without proper gun training and easier access to handguns, Memphis has already seen a spike in violent crimes.

Except, Tennessee’s gun laws have nothing to do with the spike in violent crimes in Memphis and it’s completely irresponsible to claim otherwise.

First, Memphis is far from the only place seeing an increase in violent crimes. Other places seeing such an increase include New York City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Chicago, and Baltimore, among others. I chose those because all are covered by much stricter gun control laws than Tennessee and none of them have reduced restrictions lately.

If the new laws in the state were responsible, you wouldn’t see a similar increase in violent crime across the nation, including in cities that have much stricter laws on the books.

Further, let’s also face the fact that these shootings aren’t being carried out by people who lawfully purchased a firearm and are going to comply with all firearm-related laws but aren’t going to sweat laws for little things like murder. These aren’t law-abiding citizens who snap, they’re generally people who are involved in other crimes and are obtaining guns illegally in the first place.

So to claim violent crime in Memphis is an issue because the state loosened its carry laws isn’t just wrong, it’s insane.

However, when you’re trying to push an agenda, you’ll manipulate the facts in any way you can so you can advance that agenda. In this case, trying to push gun control means pretending that there simply can’t be any other factors at play, it simply has to be because of insufficient gun control.

The problem is, we live in a world where we know what’s going on in all of these other cities. We know what laws they did or didn’t pass, so we know that the narrative they’re trying to push is BS.

Unfortunately, they keep getting away with it.