California has tons of gun control and has fewer murders than a lot of other states. This isn't a controversial statement because it's true.

Of course, they've got more extensive gun control laws and have more murders than a lot of other states as well. This shouldn't be a controversial statement either, because it also true.

In fact, according to the CDC, California ranks in the middle of the pack for homicides per capita.

But a recent op-ed I came across seems to want to sell people a very different vision of reality. 

State-by-state standings on deaths from gunfire form a striking contrast between Republican- and Democratic-led states as one reality becomes ever more clear: The stronger Republican control of a particular state, the more deadly gunfire that state will see.

So it’s plain that onetime Californians who left for cheaper housing and more conservative politics in states from Florida and Texas to Wyoming and Missouri have increased their chances of dying from gunshots.

That’s beyond question in the state standings published by many organizations, but never by the National Rifle Association, whose anti-control lobbying remains as determined as ever.

It’s still too early to assess the full consequences of the US Supreme Court’s mid-2023 shootdown of New York’s tough concealed carry law, but before that decision, New York was the fifth least likely state for dying from a gunshot, at a mere 5 such deaths per 100,000 population.

New York is almost as Democratic-dominated as California, which was the eighth-safest gunfire death state at just 8.5 per 100,000.

First, we've already seen homicide rates drop throughout the nation following the Bruen decision. While I'm realistic enough to be hesitant to say that Bruen is the reason why those numbers dropped--homicides are far more complex than that--I can definitively say that all the doomsaying about the decision has been proven false.

Second, he's associating "gun deaths" with "homicides," apparently.

See, "gun deaths" include suicides. It stands to reason that states with more lenient gun laws would have higher rates of gun ownership. If people have guns and decide to take their own life, you're more likely to see them use a gun.

Gun control is kind of terrible at preventing suicides as a whole--remove the gun and someone will just try with some other method, and plenty of them are almost as lethal as a firearm--so using suicide numbers at all is nothing but a way to inflate the fear surrounding firearms.

Which is why I used homicide numbers to start with.

And in there, gun control states don't come out nearly as well.

According to those same CDC numbers I mentioned above, seven of the top 10 states with the lowest homicide rates are relatively pro-gun states, though it remains to be seen if Maine remains in that group.

Oddly, the ten highest homicide states fall exactly the same way, with seven out of ten being pro-gun.

That's because of another little anomaly that gets ignored by op-eds like this: There are more red states than blue ones. As a result, you're going to find more red states than blue ones. 

And finally, let's look at those red states with high homicide rates. Where are the homicides the worst? Democrat-controlled cities with anti-gun agendas only held in check by the rest of the state not wanting to play those silly games.

The truth is that anti-gun op-ed writers often try this pathetic tactic, but they're hoping their readers are just too stupid to recognize what they're doing.