The idea of “gun violence” is that somehow, violent crime is worse when committed with a gun or something. I don’t really understand it, but it’s the term the media absolutely loves to use to talk about violent crime.

And, in fairness, most violent crime is carried out with a firearm. That’s because guns are about the best weapon most of us can obtain. It’s why we, as citizens, want to hold onto our firearms.

But in many places, there’s long been a push to restrict these weapons. You know this, though. Otherwise, you likely wouldn’t be here reading this right now.

You also know that the places most likely to push gun control are Democratic-run states and cities. They claim that gun control will make the nation safer. Many have enacted their own gun control efforts.

According to a new study, though, it hasn’t worked.

WalletHub’s “Cities with the Biggest Homicide Rate Problems” study is out and suggests that blue city residents have a higher chance of becoming a homicide victim.

The homicide rate in the U.S. has seen a rapid increase during the past few years. In this study, WalletHub compared 45 of the largest U.S. cities based on per capita homicides in Q4 2022, as well as per capita homicides in Q4 2022 vs. Q4 2021 and Q4 2020.

The top five worst cities for homicide, beginning with No. 1, are: Atlanta, Baltimore, Detroit, Las Vegas and Kansas City, Mo.

The top five best cities for homicide rates, beginning with No. 41, are: Scottsdale, Arizona; Anchorage, Alaska; Fort Worth, Texas; Dallas; and St. Petersburg, Florida.

The list is dominated by cities with strong Democrat governments with the only Republican city within the top 10 being Jacksonville, Florida, at No. 9. The only other two Republican-controlled cities to make the list are Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, at No. 27 and Fort Worth, Texas, at No. 43.

Of the 45 spots on the list of worst cities, only 19 come from red states. The rest, 26, come from blue ones.

Now, it would be easy to just point at laugh at the Democrats in these cities and say their gun control didn’t work because, well, the gun control they tried clearly didn’t work.

But not all of the cities in the top 5 have local gun control laws on the books. Atlanta and Las Vegas, for example, are in states with preemption laws on the books. They can’t pass their own gun control.

That’s important to note because the issue is far more complex than simply “gun control = gun violence.” If it were that simple, it would be great for our side of the debate, but nothing is that cut and dried on this issue.

And that’s kind of the problem.

Gun violence is generally touted as needing only one potential solution and that is gun control. However, this list strongly suggests that while it doesn’t automatically mean your city will be violent, it’s pretty clear that it just doesn’t work.

If it doesn’t work, why do it? This is a constitutionally protected right, after all. Why restrict it if those laws simply don’t accomplish what they’re meant to accomplish?

Gun violence permeates our American cities and the current crop of efforts, including gun control, aren’t accomplishing much.