Do We Know What Causes Gun Violence?

Although this comment may read like it’s a defense of Ron DeSantis, not to worry, it’s not. But when a media type asks a public official about gun violence and the questioner gets the issue all wrong, I feel compelled to state the facts no matter who ends up looking good versus who looks bad.

On Sunday, DeSantis was interviewed on Meet the Press by Kristen Welker and after he touted his great job on reducing crime, Welker said, “Governor, actually, statistically speaking, the CDC says that the firearm mortality rate is actually higher under your administration then it was under your predecessor’s administration,” and then they started talking over each other.

Welker was correct. In 2017, two years before DeSantis became Governor, the firearm mortality number in Florida was 2,724 and in 2021 it jumped to 3,142, an increase of 15%.

Now, if DeSantis had his shirt together, he might have agreed with Welker’s gotcha’ about the increase in Florida gun deaths, but then he could have pointed out that the national increase in gun deaths from 2017 to 2021 was more than 20%, and in the neighboring state of Louisiana it was 30%.

We don’t have any ‘official’ gun violence numbers from the CDC since 2021, but the Gun Violence Archive, whose annual numbers aren’t that far off from what the CDC gives us, says that in…