If Republicans are so Good at Law and Order, Why Are the Murder Rates Highest in Most of Their States

From MSNBC

Fellow writer AZ Blue Meanie touched on this in a recent piece, citing California Governor Gavin Newsom's critique of Democratic messaging in the face of Republican hypocrisy on Law and Order.

In an interview with MSNBC, Governor Newsom correctly pointed out that recent data from the National Center for Health Statistics showed most of the states with the highest murder rates have Republican Governors and/or State Legislators.

Those states are:

• Lousiana
• Mississippi
• South Carolina
• Georgia
• Arkansas
• Missouri
• Alabama
• Tennessee
• Kentucky
• Oklahoma
• Ohio
• New Mexico
• Illinois
• Maryland
• Delaware
• North Carolina

Of the 15 states with the highest death rates, 12 have either a Republican Governor, Legislature, or both.

Expanding the map further, blue states California and New York have lower homicide rates than the states where Republican Governors like Ducey (Arizona,) DeSantis (Florida,) and Abbott (Texas) routinely ridicule them.

Which begs the question.

If Republicans are so Good at Law and Order, why are the murder rates highest in most of their states

That is a question Arizona Attorney General Democratic Nominee pointed out on her September 28, 2022, debate with Republican Nominee Abe Hamadeh when she brought up that the Republican Governor and legislature are not spending any of their budget surpluses sufficiently tackling the fentanyl drug trafficking issue at the border.

She also added that:

"We have seen over the last ten years under Republican AG's (including current Superintendent of Public Instruction Candidate Tom Horne) and Governors a rise in the murder rate in Arizona of 20 percent. That has to come to an end."

Of course, it would be helpful if Republicans voted for budgets that increased resources for law enforcement (and yes, spending more on mental health specialists helps the police) and legislation to take guns away from criminals and maniacs.

A group, Everytown for Gun Safety has started to release ads targeting Republican candidates and their aversion to helping law enforcement.

One of those ads, noted by Washington Post columnists Paul Waldman and Greg Sargent, against Georgia Trump Republican Senate Candidate Herschel Walker, ably demonstrates the former party of Lincoln's weakness in Reproductive Freedom (even in cases of rape and incest) Law and Order (in addition to their looking the other way on Donald Trump's crimes and those of his domestic terrorist confederates,) and how Democrats, as Newsom suggested, should attack it.

The narrator points out that Walker opposes common sense gun safety laws that could save lives and help the police, saying "he would make it easier for dangerous people to carry guns in public, no questions asked."

I wonder when Everytown for Gun Safety will come out with ads on Arizona's  Kari Lake, Abe Hamadeh, Mark Finchem, and Blake Masters.

Voters need to ask themselves if Republicans are as good at law and order when they vote on November 8, 2022.

The answer in a word is NO.

Their definition of law and order is protecting themselves (the plutocrats and white nationalist community and the misguided from other groups that have been brainwashed to follow them) and using the police on everyone else in their dystopian version of a Trumpist-Fascist state.

Voters on November 8, 2022, need to defeat those candidates that want that vision for Arizona and America and elect those that will truly support law enforcement and public safety.