May 22, 2013

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Senator Stephenson files bill to encourage Beretta to move to Utah

May 17, 2013 by 1 Comment

Beretta

Maryland’s loss could become Utah’s gain.

As Maryland Governor Martin O’Malley this week signed one of the strictest gun control laws in the nation,  firearms manufacturer Beretta considered  the effect of the new law on it long-time manufacturing operations in the state.

“We are confronted with a state government that wants to ban our products at a time, by the way, when numerous other state governments are courting our investment,” Beretta General Counsel Jeff Reh is quoted as telling lawmakers in February. “Not surprisingly, we are concerned.”

State Senator Howard Stephenson thinks Beretta might find Utah an attractive alternative to Maryland and wants the legislature to do what it can to make it more so.

Stephenson thinks Utah would be a great home for Beretta’s manufacturing operations. By removing barriers to manufacturing, Beretta could find Utah a great place for its manufacturing operations, he told me this evening. He has opened a bill file to get the process started.

Howard StephensonWith Utah’s Second Amendment friendly laws, strong business environment, and educated workforce, Stephenson says taking steps to encourage Beretta to move or expand into Utah as soon as possible could pay off.

“In Maryland, Beretta has paid more than 31 million dollars in taxes,” said Stephenson in a statement on the Utah Senate Site.  ”They currently employ more than 400 people.”

For example, Stephenson told me that while Utah has already removed many of the taxes on manufactured goods, Utah retains taxes on goods with a useful life of less than three years. Removing these taxes on manufactured goods completely would enhance the opportunity for a manufacturer like Beretta even more. Many of the parts and components in Beretta’s firearms and other products must be replaced in less than three years.

Even though the Utah legislature isn’t due to be in session until next year, Stephenson told me that if Beretta is interested it would be possible to call a special session to pass any specific legislation drafted.

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Spending, not guns, on our minds

April 22, 2013 by Leave a Comment

barack_obama_gun_control_ap_328A funny thing happened to President Obama on his way to increasing federal regulation of firearms. Members of Congress noticed that gun control wasn’t a top priority for their constituents and handed the President his first major legislative loss.

Instead, Americans are still more concerned about the economy and the state of our fiscal house. From the “Editor-in-chief” over at Gallup:

Only 4% of Americans say that gun violence or gun issues constitute the most important problem facing the country today, based on our April 4-7 monthly update of the “most important problem” measure. This puts guns in the same 4% category as immigration issues, education, and the situation with North Korea.

To be clear, the 4% of Americans for whom gun violence is a top issue were no where to be found before Newport, Connecticut happened. Prior to the Sandy Hook massacre, gun violence didn’t register on the scale.

At all.

Instead, Americans’ top five issues are, in order:

  1. The economy (in general)
  2. Unemployment/jobs
  3. Dissatisfaction with government  (whatever this means)
  4. Federal budget deficit/federal debt, and
  5. Healthcare (which is declining in importance over the last three months)

You can’t see gun violence appear in the list for another four rows, and then it’s tied with worry about threats from North Korea, a country that is begging Mongolia to provide food aid for its starving people. The drug lords of Juarez, Mexico pose a greater threat to the United States.  (See the full chart below.)Gallup Issues

With worries about the economy, our ability to maintain a standard of living, provide for ourselves, and so on, weighing on us, why should anyone, let alone Obama who also has these polling numbers, be surprised that Congress, with lower approval ratings than the President, has no fear about thumbing their collective noses at his push to require universal background checks?

It’s still the economy, stupid. And it will be until we change how we’ve been doing things.

Not that I want to rely upon Hollywood for an example, or anything, but I’m going to do just that. I’ve been watching Andrew Sorkin’s West Wing lately, set in the bright years of the 1990s (or so). Repeatedly I hear the same talking points and arguments that are being made–today–by liberals and Democrats in favor of their pet programs and policies.  Whether it’s for gun control, expansion of governments role in healthcare, fiscal and tax policy, or the first amendment, the arguments have not changed.

The difference is that elected officials, all too often, act like our collective memory is too short to remember what they are doing now has been done before, has been said before, and, well, got us into the mess we’re in now. But does anyone remember? Are we going to keep doing the same thing and expect different results?

I can’t claim to understand the arcane workings of federal programs, but I do know the pinch on my pocketbook, on my family, when I look at my pay stub and the withholdings there. I do see the taxes I pay at the fuel pump when I look at my receipt. I do recognize how much cheaper and easier it is to buy a book online from Amazon compared to Barnes and Nobles’ brick and mortar and what will happen if the government starts taxing that purchase. I do see how difficult it is to buy a home, still, five years after the housing market collapsed, largely because of governmental meddling in the housing market. And I know that I am not in the minority–Americans think about the price of a home, of a car (remember what “cash for clunkers” did to all those perfectly fine used cars that we could still be driving?), of a meal, of a vacation…or the lack thereof.

And that’s on my mind more than is gun violence. Stop being so surprised and peeved that you didn’t get your way, Mr. President. It’s government for, by and of the people–and the people are concerned about the economy.

Publius Online is participating in the Blogging from A to Z Challenge, a month-long quest to post every day (I know…I’ve missed a few days). Each day should match a letter of the alphabet. Today is the letter S, as in Spending.

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To filibuster or not to filibuster…

March 28, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Paul Rand filibuster

When is a filibuster an effective tool to raise public awareness? And when is it the anti-democratic tool of the minority to stop legislation it opposes?

A couple weeks ago, Senator Rand Paul of Kentucky took to the Senate floor to speak against the nomination of John Brennan as head of the CIA because Paul opposed the Obama Administration’s drone policy, largely crafted by Brennan. Previous to Paul’s filibuster, Gallup found that only 26% of Americans opposed using drones to kill Americans abroad. After, that number swung dramatically, doubling to 52% opposed.

With the shift in public opinion to bolster him, Paul called the filibuster a victory (though some question whether he overstates his success). The same Gallup poll also noted that less than half of Americans are following the news about drones “closely.”

In other words, we’re busy people, and the Obama Administration’s drone policy is just one more thing to follow. Hence, the success of Rand’s filibuster. It raised an otherwise marginal issue to the level of our attention.

Could it work again?

(Left to Right): Senator Rand Paul, Senator Michael Lee, and Senator Ted Cruz

(Left to Right): Senator Rand Paul, Senator Michael Lee, and Senator Ted Cruz

Senators Michael Lee of Utah, Ted Cruz of Texas, and, of course, Paul, have indicated that while they are not going to the Senate floor to talk about the Second Amendment in another speaking filibuster, they will, in a “silent” filibuster require a sixty-vote majority to move any gun regulation to a vote. In a statement this morning, Lee warned that any attempts by the administration to push gun controls through Congress will see another speaking filibuster from the Senate floor.

[T]his debate is about more than magazine clips and pistol grips. It is about the purpose of the Second Amendment and why our constitutionally protected right to self-defense is an essential part of self-government. Any legislation that would restrict our basic right to self-defense deserves robust and open debate.  Requiring a 60-vote threshold helps ensure that we have that debate rather than skipping directly to the back room deals, horse trading, and business-as-usual politics that typifies the way Congress passes legislation today.

The White House does not relish the prospect of having legislation, even legislation that probably won’t pass, not receive a vote on the floor. White House Press Secretary Jay Carney said that

“Filibusters of efforts to move forward with common-sense measures to reduce gun violence would be unfortunate. We have worked with Congress, with the Senate, to try to advance the elements of the president’s plan that require legislative action and these again are common-sense measures.”

Calling it ‘unfortunate’ is , as Kyle Becker put it, akin to “how a guy who owes a loan shark ten grand falls down a flight of stairs and that is ‘unfortunate.’”

While I agree with Lee that the debate on the Second Amendment needs to happen prior to the passage of any gun control bill, I don’t know that a procedural filibuster, by itself, pushes the debate onto the public sphere the way he seems to want. Speaking filibusters, like Paul’s earlier this month, occur with enough infrequency that their impact is more significant.

On the other hand, procedural filibusters happen frequently enough that many from both parties have considered doing away with them. It’s a procedural move that allows a minority to block majority action without a three-fifths majority override.  In contrast to the speaking filibuster that lays out the arguments dramatically for the world to watch and consider, the silent filibuster might do more damage than good because it appears to be anti-democratic and does not provide any argument for the public to consider.

In any respect, the debate on how we regulate guns is important and should occur. The President’s bully pulpit wields a disproportionate impact on public opinion, and a speaking filibuster as a means of communicating to the American public may be just what is necessary to return the Senate to its place as an effect check on the power of the presidency.

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On the veto of HB76 [Contributor]

March 26, 2013 by Leave a Comment

imagesRhett Wilkinson is a senior at Utah State University. He is studying journalism and political science. The opinions expressed are his own.

[REVISED]

The recent constitutional carry issue in Utah as expressed in HB 76 has certainly stirred many emotions in the state. Previous supporters of Governor Gary Herbert have shirked their positive sentiments for the three-year state executive, as some are saying he’s in trouble with his own Republican Party.

Absolutely, he is. That’s because the governor vetoed the bill, which would have given Utahns the right to carry a concealed weapon without a permit.

I certainly didn’t go over the bill “line item by line item”— as the governor said he did—so I certainly don’t have the privilege of having gained knowledge of the bill as he has.

On any account, Gov. Herbert certainly could have done better in choosing his words, like my mother has taught me to do from a young age.

In late February, in a post on his website titled “Guiding Principles on Gun Control,” he made a variety of pledges that are too easily shot down.

First, he said he “will not support any legislation or proposals—either in Utah or by any federal entity—that would diminish our fundamental right to bear arms guaranteed in the Second Amendment to the US Constitution.” “We need to work together to find solutions that protect Second Amendment rights and ensure public safety,” he added. Given that the Second Amendment says nothing about the requisition of permits, he certainly may have violated this promise.

“I will not support message bills that inflame, rather than inform, the discussion,” he said. “Neither does it help to propose extreme measures that… polarize the debate.” Though the legislation may not have carried an agenda, since the local media have already reported on a vehement backlash—and to expect more of it in weeks to come—a fire is certainly burning. And, sides are being taken.

Gary Herbert“Tighter gun control won’t necessarily prevent isolated, unpredictable, inexplicable violent acts,” he added. Right. Just like how James Holmes wouldn’t have cared about violating a requirement for a permit when he rather placed a priority on massacring an Aurora, Colo. theatre. Or, since Adam Lanza might have been as concerned as Holmes about the requirement the governor upheld when shooting 20 members of Sandy Hook Elementary School, the governor’s statement that “children have the right to go to school and be protected from those who would harm them” might be a bit silly.

Here’s a good point—finally, since it’s at the end of his post—that “we must address ongoing societal degradation of shared values and the expanding culture of violence in graphic movies and video games, which desensitizes all of us, particularly our youth, to the tragic repercussions of gratuitous violence.” Unless a permit makes this happen, however, the public shouldn’t have confidence that legislation will ensure this happens.

Will the state legislature override this veto? We won’t know possibly until late April. Utah Speaker of the House Rebecca Lockhart said it would need to pass in an override session by May 13. Whatever the body decides to do, we ought to hope it at least considers to fallacy of the governor’s recent public statements on the policy in contrast to an apparently associated decision weeks later.

 

Post: Guiding Principles on Gun Control

Thursday, February 21st, 2013

By Governor Gary R. Herbert

Respect the Second Amendment

I will not support any legislation or proposals—either in Utah or by any federal entity—that would diminish our fundamental right to bear arms guaranteed in the Second Amendment to the US Constitution.

Find rational solutions

Any legislation must be carefully considered and pragmatic, not reactionary nor emotional. We need to work together to find solutions that protect Second Amendment rights and ensure public safety. I will not support message bills that inflame, rather than inform, the discussion. Neither does it help to propose extreme measures that politicize or polarize the debate.

Enforce existing laws

Rather than passing new restrictive federal laws and rules, we should focus our efforts on enforcing current laws, such as preventing firearms access for criminals or the mentally ill. Tighter gun control won’t necessarily prevent isolated, unpredictable, inexplicable violent acts.

Protect the vulnerable

We must not forget our obligation to protect those who are vulnerable. Everyone has a right to assemble in public settings without the fear of being attacked. Children have the right to go to school and be protected from those who would harm them. We must consider all reasonable and Constitutional options to ensure the ability of students to study and learn in a safe environment.

Address a growing culture of violence

We must address ongoing societal degradation of shared values and the expanding culture of violence in graphic movies and video games, which desensitizes all of us, particularly our youth, to the tragic repercussions of gratuitous violence.

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Publius Online on Utah Political Capitol’s podcast

January 22, 2013 by Leave a Comment

Utah Political Capitol podcastOn Monday, I was a guest on Utah Political Capitol’s weekly podcast. A new venture in the Utah political landscape, my conversation was with Eric Ethington and Curtis Haring, by their description two “long-time Utah politicos.” They are friends, and though we often disagree on public policy (I met Curtis during his time in leadership at the Young Democrats of Utah organization and Eric was communications director for the Utah State Democratic Party from October 2011 to January 2012), I always find conversation with them interesting and insightful.

Listen in to the podcast here. We discussed the recent allegations against newly elected Utah Attorney General John Swallow and the gun regulations and legislation (proposed, suggested, and otherwise).

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Gun laws won’t stop violence, but do infringe the 2nd Amendment [KSL]

January 11, 2013 by 6 Comments

The following is an opinion piece I authored for KSL on January 11, 2013.

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SALT LAKE CITY — With the Sandy Hook shooting painfully heavy on our minds, the American public and policymakers are in a frenzy over guns.

Record-sized crowds are attending gun shows, firearms manufacturers can’t produce inventory fast enough to keep up with demand, and gun sellers are sold out of everything from rifles to handguns.

Meanwhile, politicians are in a tizzy, too. Bill Clinton, invited to speak by Samsung at the prestigious tech conference CES, turned a speech on bridging the tech gap between the rich and the poor into a rant against 30-round gun clips. Andrew Cuomo, New York’s governor and a presumed aspirant for the Democratic nomination for president, after musing about gun confiscation earlier in the week, said he would “(e)nact the toughest assault weapon ban in the nation, period!” To cap it all, Vice President Joe Biden is hinting that President Barack Obama will use an executive order to impose new gun controls. “There are executive orders,” the vice president said, “executive action that can be taken.”

On one side of the debate are a lot of Americans concerned that agents of the government will show up at their door to confiscate their rightfully owned guns. On the other side are politicians who are eager to be seen doing something, anything, to show their voters, or perhaps just each other, that they will keepmass shootings from happening again. To keep Sandy Hook from happening again. Or Aurora. Or Virginia Tech. Or Columbine.

It’s a legitimate concern. Not even the most hardened soul can watch a tragedy like Sandy Hook unfold and not wonder why and wish that something could be done.

But does more gun regulation actually diminish gun violence? In a speech where he called for the toughest gun laws in the country, Gov. Cuomo seemed to think that tough laws would protect the public, even while allowing hunters to retain firearms for hunting.

Just to remind everyone what we are talking about here, it’s the Second Amendment, not some out-of-date federal regulation, and the Second Amendment was not designed for hunters.

The second in the Bill of Rights, it says that “A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed.”

Arguments for limiting the extent of the Second Amendment — or infringement — are often made by referencing how many bullets are necessary for hunting. “No one hunts with an assault rifle,” said Mr. Cuomo. “We respect hunters and sportsmen. This is not taking away peoples’ guns. I own a gun. I own a Remington shotgun. I’ve hunted. I’ve shot. That’s not what this is about.”

While the Second Amendment is often closely tied to hunting and self-defense in our minds, the Second Amendment is not about hunting, and maybe not even self-defense, for that matter. At least not self-defense from criminals.

In United States v. Miller, the U.S. Supreme Court noted that the Second Amendment protected an individual’s right to own guns that could be used for the “common defense.” Specifically, the Supreme Court said that “ordinarily when called for service (men in the militia) were expected to appear bearing arms supplied by themselves and of the kind in common use at the time.”

Common for infantry at the time were muskets. Common for infantry in our time is the AR-15, a civilian version of the Army’s M-16.

Later references to the case — there are seven, according to Mitch Felling, who provides a more thorough history of the Second Amendment at Publius Online — have upheld the right of the people to possess guns that would be used by infantrymen to provide for the “common defense.” District of Columbia v. Heller in 2008 provided the first thorough review of the Second Amendment since Miller and protected the right of individuals to keep guns for self-defense, too.

But does anyone really need to have an assault rifle? Do we need rifles that can fire 30 rounds without reloading?

The Second Amendment’s original purpose was to provide for states a protection against the threat of invasion, by foreign power or by the federal government. I hope that such a time never arrives that we need, as everyday citizens, to take up arms to defend our homes and our states against such a threat, but the examples of history have shown that when the people are armed, government is more measured and respectful.

Perhaps we should ask the question a different way. Would taking away the right to own assault rifles stop or diminish gun violence?

The researchers at PoliticIt compared murder by firearm rates across the country with the strictness of state gun regulations. Their ranking of states by the strictness of gun regulations gives California the strictest gun laws, while Utah ranks 50th because it has the least-restrictive regulations on gun ownership.

A graph by PoliticIt shows the correlation between gun regulations in each state with the reduction of homicide by firearms. The correlation is so low, they said, that it can reasonably be concluded that gun laws have “little to no effect on the reduction of murders by firearms.”

In other words, gun laws don’t have a measurable effect on gun violence.

In contrast, graphics from zachmortensen.net seem to show a negative correlation between gun ownership and homicide rates. Based on a 2001 survey of 201,881 households by the Behavioral Risk Factor Surveillance System, the correlation seems to indicate that gun ownership accounts for 35 percent of the variance in the homicide rate, while other factors (high poverty rates, high unemployment, poor public education) accounts for the other 65 percent of the variability.

In other words, having more gun ownership may actually encourage greater security, but a greater impact on homicide rates could be made by decreasing poverty, increasing employment, and strengthening education.

Politicians may moderate their rhetoric by saying they want to leave guns for hunters, or even for self-defense. But the Second Amendment wasn’t designed for hunters — like the other amendments in the Bill of Rights, it was designed as a check on the power of the power of the federal government. It was written and ratified by a people with recent memories of an oppressive, overbearing central government fresh on their minds. It was a central government that taxed without representation, quartered troops in their homes, denied them the rights of association and speech, and had denied them representation in the constitutional government that they, as Englishmen, felt was their right.

It’s easy to see that time as a different age, but the fact remains: the Second Amendment’s original purpose was to provide for states a protection against the threat of invasion, by foreign power or by the federal government. I hope that such a time never arrives that we need, as everyday citizens, to take up arms to defend our homes and our states against such a threat, but the examples of history have shown that when the people are armed, government is more measured and respectful.

Changing the number of rounds legally held in a gun clip, though, is a moot point. It won’t reduce crime, decrease homicides, or end gun violence, in my opinion. All it does it let certain politicians look tough on crime and responsive to grieving families, while at the same time infringing the Second Amendment, one of the first checks on the power of the federal government.

If politicians are serious about ending violence, perhaps it is time for a frank conversation about the root causes of violence and what, beyond the use of a firearm, mass shooters have in common. We cannot prevent evil people from trying to do evil, but our response to evil should not perpetuate a greater threat.

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Guns and Social Network Reactions

December 27, 2012 by 2 Comments

I think it would be safe to say that very few of political watchers had gun regulation on the radar in the days before the Sandy Hook shootings. Since…well, it’s hard to talk about anything else (and not just because the fiscal cliff story is the least-interesting-and-most-difficult-to-understand-but-perhaps-most-important-story this year).

With that in mind, I asked a couple friends over at PoliticIt to take a look at what trends they saw in social media immediately before and immediately after the Newtown shooting.  (PoliticIt, if you’ve not heard of it before, is the brainchild of Josh Light and Sterling Morris. They collect data from social networks, the internet, and “the real world” to create a measure of politicians digital influence that accurately predicts electoral success.)

They showed me some interesting things. First, the number of comments on Twitter (or “tweets”) about gun laws rose dramatically.

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Clearly, people felt passionately about the gun laws, whether it was the need for more of them or the opposition to their proliferation. Another piece of information that came back from PoliticIt was the tone surrounding the tweets, and while tone is hard to define in the digital world, some words can tend to indicate a positive or negative tone.

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The PoliticIt guys noticed that while there was a slightly negative tone in tweets around “gun laws,” tweets that discussed “mental health” received more positive response.   This seems to follow an observation I’ve made during the subsequent ten days since the shooting, and that is this: while people seem to be very much divided and equivocal about what should happen with guns—i.e. how should the Second Amendment (for an interesting review of how the Supreme Court has applied the Second Amendment, see this post) be applied: to require registrations? To outlaw certain firearms? etc—there is much more support for looking at the mental health of individual seeking to acquire firearms.

That is, none of us seem to think it’s a good idea to allow the mentally ill to have access to deadly weapons. Interestingly, the chatter on Twitter remained divided, but fell in volume within only a few days after the shooting reflecting, perhaps, that our ability to retain and maintain a conversation after our initial outburst was limited.

A couple more observations from PoliticIt on their sample using the hashtag #gunlaws:

  • 52% of tweets referencing gun control were “pro-gun” while 61% of tweets just referencing guns were supportive of Second Amendment rights.
  • Despite the broadcast of President Obama’s comments over network and cable television calling for more gun regulation, the sample did not find any reference to the comments. Either people just didn’t care or they didn’t find his comments were noting.
  • Anti-gun commentary seemed to focus on the need to restrict certain guns, commented on the intelligence of gun owners, made appeals to call your local elected official, or discussed Australia’s gun regulations.

Zeitgeist? A word map from the sample: 

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 Two things that PoliticIt saw tweeted, and retweeted, several times included this quote from Ronald Reagan and an article by Thomas Sowell:

Sowell argues in his piece that those calling for more regulation are acting on emotion, not facts. The following is what I thought was a pertinent part of his piece:

The key fallacy of so-called gun control laws is that such laws do not in fact control guns. They simply disarm law-abiding citizens, while people bent on violence find firearms readily available.

If gun control zealots had any respect for facts, they would have discovered this long ago, because there have been too many factual studies over the years to leave any serious doubt about gun control laws being not merely futile but counterproductive.

Places and times with the strongest gun control laws have often been places and times with high murder rates. Washington, D.C., is a classic example, but just one among many. When it comes to the rate of gun ownership, that is higher in rural areas than in urban areas, but the murder rate is higher in urban areas. The rate of gun ownership is higher among whites than among blacks, but the murder rate is higher among blacks. For the country as a whole, hand gun ownership doubled in the late 20th century, while the murder rate went down.

What of the NRA?

Naturally, the National Rifle Association has come under fire for its Second Amendment advocacy. How has it been affected on social media? The NRA had just under 69,000 followers on Twitter (@NRA) before the shooting and was adding about 1,500 a day. After the shooting, the NRA added  8,989 followers, or 471% of their average growth. After Wayne LaPierre addressed reporters at a press conference on December 21, that average grew 3,100 followers a day (according to Twitter Counter).


Is there any correlation between politics and homicide by firearm?

Another question that I saw, and that the PoliticIt guys researched, was the number of deaths by firearms compared with how states voted during the recent presidential election. Here’s the graphic they created:

The graph shows which states voted for Obama versus the number of murders by firearms per 100,000 people. Nationally, 2.75 people out of every 100,000 are killed by firearms.

It appears that blue states and red states fall on both sides of the line without any clear division. Some states are far higher than the national average, though, including Mississippi, Louisiana and the District of Columbia, all of which exceed the furthest deviation below the average (Hawaii) by almost two. The District of Columbia, with some of the nation’s strictest gun laws (can one even carry a gun in D.C.?) has the highest per capita rates of murder by firearm in the nation.

Other states with strict gun laws that exceed the national average include Illinois (just barely), New Jersey, California, and New York.   On the other hand, Utah, where I live, has some fewest gun regulations and is below the national average. I’m not sure that gun regulations, or how voters vote in national elections, is the right place to look for determining what states are likely to see murder by firearm, but it is interesting.

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