A Look at ‘Gun Homicide’ Versus Suicide Stats for 2024

As it stands, we’re probably going to be waiting a bit before we see details about 2025’s “gun crime” statistics. It always takes a bit of time to break those down, though, so that’s not unusual. On Thursday, Cam took a look at 2024’s numbers as they applied to Florida, which had just achieved real permitless carry.

Now, I’m going to look at them at a more national level, because Florida’s numbers don’t really matter if you don’t live in Florida, except in an academic sense. The rest of us live in other parts of the country.

Plus, national statistics are often the ones used to push for gun control laws in the halls of Congress.

So, let’s look at what we’ve got.

Firearm homicides in the United States fell sharply in 2024, but gun suicides reached a record high, according to a new analysis of federal mortality data by researchers at the Johns Hopkins Center for Gun Violence Solutions.

The report, based on newly released data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, found that 44,447 people died from firearm-related injuries in 2024, down about 5% from the previous year. The decline was driven largely by a nearly 16% drop in firearm homicides, which fell to 15,364 deaths.

At the same time, firearm suicides rose to a record 27,593 deaths, accounting for about 62% of all firearm deaths in 2024.

The report’s authors also found that firearms remained the leading cause of death for children and teens ages 1 to 17 for the fifth consecutive year, with 2,214 deaths in 2024.

The fact that they continue to exclude children under the age of 1 is infuriating because they know doing otherwise would cause the numbers to drop like a rock. Or, if they’re going to do that, how about breaking the numbers down by age cohorts? Then, at least, people would see which group is being shot, and it’s not the little rugrats running around the elementary school playground.

I’ve tread that ground aplenty, though, including earlier today.

Now, let’s understand that a 16 percent drop in homicides is fantastic, especially considering how those numbers keep sliding down at a significant rate. That’s huge, and it’s very good news.

On the issue of suicides, though, there’s clearly work to be done. However, let’s also remember that there were 27,300 firearm suicides in 2023. For those even worse at math than I am, that’s a difference of just 293.

In a country of 330 million people.

Now, again, there’s still work to do, but this wasn’t a crisis-level jump in the numbers.

Plus, I really do hate them lumping suicides in with homicides to create “gun deaths” as a statistic, because the two are very different in every way that leads up to a finger on the trigger. The mechanisms are different, and so the solutions are different.

Suicide is a mental health issue, and we’d do well to start treating it like one. Instead, we get the numbers conflated into one big total that hides the facts and helps people ignore the truth that there are tens of thousands of people each year who opt for a permanent solution to temporary problems. We can help them, and we can do it not because of the numbers, but because it’s the decent thing to do. Our neighbors are suffering, and we should do more to help with that.

Unfortunately, that doesn’t sell gun control as well, so until then, we get stuff like this.

BLUF
The end result is that Vang is out of the US and Walz exposed as a radical who will put children at risk to score cheap points on immigration. If Walz could have played this worse, someone will have to explain how.

Rubio and DHS Deported Child Molester Walz Tried to Keep In US.

I hate to say I told you so, but … naah, I love to say I told you so. Especially when it comes to kicking child molesters out of the country after Democrat governors attempt to keep them on the streets.

Last month, Tim Walz and his Board of Pardons issued a pardon to Tou Lue Vang, who had been in prison since pleading guilty to repeated sexual assaults on a girl for two years, starting when she was ten years old. The Board of Pardons, as David pointed out last week, consists of Walz, radical AG Keith Ellison, and Walz’ appointed chief justice of the state supreme court. Walz and his panel intended to keep Vang from deportation back to Laos, whence he came to the US illegally, by removing the only conviction on his record.

The Department of Homeland Security called the move “disgusting” at the time:

“Governor Tim Walz’s decision to pardon an illegal alien convicted child rapist so he can remain in our country is disgusting,” said Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis.

 “These are the criminal illegal aliens he and his Minnesota sanctuary politicians are protecting. Tou Lue Vang lost his legal status following his conviction for repeatedly sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl.

Following the conviction, he was placed in removal proceedings and issued a final order of removal by a judge. This pardon will take away this child rapist’s qualifying convictions that made him removable from the United States.”

Well, that was what Walz and Ellison hoped, anyway. They wanted to thumb their nose at DHS, ICE, and Donald Trump by, er … [checks notes] … releasing a child predator onto the streets of Minnesota. As I wrote at the time, that logic appeared to parallel the Labour Party’s decision to allow rape rings to operate for decades rather than run the risk of looking culturally insensitive by booting out the Muslim immigrants running them.

I also wrote that this very weird strategy likely wouldn’t work:

I’m not so sure this will work. A state pardon does not have any real impact on the status of an illegal alien at the federal level. Trump has said he wants to concentrate on criminal illegal aliens, but that doesn’t mean deportation is limited to that class. Furthermore, the government has every right to cite the details of Vang’s crimes as an argument about his fitness to remain in the country. Walz’ pardon does not vindicate Vang, nor does it erase the evidence of his crime, including his own statements admitting to them. And again, a state pardon only has impact on state-level consequences, not federal consequences.

As it turns out, Walz’ pardon did nothing to prevent DHS from kicking Vang out of the country. The agency announced Vang’s deportation in the last hour by e-mail:

The United States Department of Homeland Security (DHS) released the following statement confirming that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) has arrested and deported an illegal alien from Laos who had been pardoned by Minnesota Governor Tim Walz and his fellow sanctuary politicians despite a prior conviction for repeatedly sexually assaulting a 10-year-old girl.

Tou Lue Vang, an illegal alien from Laos, had been convicted in 2006 of first-degree criminal sexual conduct after he repeatedly assaulted a girl between 2002 and 2004, starting when she was just 10 years old. He once offered his victim $10 to keep quiet about the sexual assaults. When interviewed by police, he tried to justify his actions as “a cultural thing,” and even said that his victim was just as guilty as him and should also be arrested.

Following his conviction, a Department of Justice (DOJ) Immigration Judge issued Vang a final order of removal on October 31, 2006. …

“ICE deported Tou Vang, an illegal alien convicted child rapist. This monster repeatedly sexually assaulted a 10-year-old girl,” said Acting Assistant Secretary Lauren Bis. “Tim Walz pardoned this sex criminal in an attempt to allow him to remain in our country. These are the criminal illegal aliens he and sanctuary politicians are protecting. We will always put the safety of the American people first.”

Secretary of State Marco Rubio intervened to strip Vang of a legal status he never should have had in the first place. That allowed DHS to arrest Vang and kick him out of the US, as Rubio explained earlier today on X/Twitter:

What exactly did Walz, Ellison, and Democrats get out of this? They made it clear that they will let sex offenders on the street as a means to frustrate the enforcement of immigration law. At the same time, Walz also demonstrated his own incompetence to game out this situation more than a single step at a time. In fact, Walz may have made Vang more of a target for DHS and the State Department with his ham-handed abuse of the pardon process. Would DHS have made Vang a priority had Walz not turned him into some bizarre, pedophilic cause celebre?

The end result is that Vang is out of the US and Walz exposed as a radical who will put children at risk to score cheap points on immigration. If Walz could have played this worse, someone will have to explain how. 

It is interesting to hear certain kinds of people insist that the citizen cannot fight the government. This would have been news to the men of Lexington and Concord, as well as the Mujahedeen in Afghanistan.
The citizen most certainly can fight the government, and usually wins when he tries.
Organized national armies are useful primarily for fighting against other organized national armies. When they try to fight against the people, they find themselves at a very serious disadvantage.
If you will just look around at the state of the world today, you will see that the guerillero has the upper hand.
Irregulars usually defeat regulars, providing they have the will. Such fighting is horrible to contemplate, but will continue to dominate brute strength.
-Jeff Cooper

What becoming an American taught me about liberty

Growing up in Australia, I lived in what most people would call a “free” society. But it wasn’t until I moved to the United States and embraced the U.S. Constitution that my entire worldview transformed. I realized that back home, freedom was treated as a privilege carefully defined by the government. In America, the Second Amendment taught me a profound truth: we are born free.

Today, as a firearms instructor and the Northeast Regional Director — and former New Hampshire State Director — of Women for Gun Rights, I live by a simple creed proudly stamped on my adopted home state’s license plates: Live Free or Die.

To me, the motto means embracing personal responsibility and never surrendering the agency that belongs to free people. The U.S. Constitution, which is now my Constitution, does not create those rights — it recognizes them and establishes a government whose powers are limited so those rights may endure.

I am now one of millions of American women who choose to live prepared, not scared. Many of us volunteer our time to defend this civil right. Yet for years, well-funded gun control organizations have tried to convince the public — and women in particular — that passing more restrictions is the only way to keep our children and communities safe.

These groups often claim to speak for all women and all families. But those of us working alongside women in our communities know the rhetoric does not match reality.

Now, hard data has finally caught up to what we’ve known all along.

A national survey commissioned by the Crime Prevention Research Center and conducted this year validates what Second Amendment advocates have long argued: the public rejects the gun control premise. When asked what would do the most to reduce violent crime, voters overwhelmingly favored holding criminals accountable over passing new restrictions.

Thirty-one percent of respondents chose enforcing existing laws as the best way to lower crime rates, while more than 30% favored arresting and prosecuting violent and repeat offenders. Only 30% supported passing new firearm-related legislation. Combined, enforcement-focused solutions outperformed new gun-control measures by more than 30 percentage points.

The message from the American people to their legislators is remarkably simple: hold violent criminals accountable, stop treating law-abiding citizens like the problem, and trust ordinary people pursuing their own happiness.

Crucially, the Center’s survey shatters the myth that women universally support disarmament. Substantial numbers of female voters favored enforcing existing laws over passing new restrictions.

Among women, the data highlights a growing trend. Instead of looking to politicians or an unreliable government for a false sense of security, women are increasingly choosing self-reliance. Nationally, concealed carry continues to grow among women, reflecting a profound cultural shift.

According to the survey, 20% of voters report possessing a concealed carry permit, and nearly 30% report carrying a firearm at least occasionally. More importantly, the number of Americans carrying concealed firearms increased by more than 5% in just over a year. Carrying a firearm for protection is no longer exceptional — it has become part of the American mainstream.

In New Hampshire, we understand the value of removing unnecessary obstacles to liberty. We are consistently recognized as one of the safest states in the nation while respecting the right of law-abiding citizens to carry without first asking government permission. A culture that values
So what concerns me in the Live Free or Die state is not death itself, but the slow erosion of personal agency — the quiet cultural shift that teaches us to look first to the government, rather than to ourselves, for our safety, our well-being and ultimately our freedom.

The right to self-defense is not a bureaucratic luxury. It is an inherent human right.

Coming from a country that chose a different path, I can tell you that restrictions do not deter violent offenders. They only disarm the vulnerable. Australia continues to grapple with violence against women and violent home invasions despite some of the world’s strictest firearms laws. While these challenges are not unique to Australia, America remains exceptional in one important respect: it trusts ordinary, law-abiding citizens with access to an equalizing force.

That is true empowerment.

The Center’s survey suggests Americans are waking up to this reality. They don’t want more laws that turn peaceful citizens into criminals. They want safety, accountability and the freedom to protect what they love. They want to live free.

When I first arrived in America, I thought freedom was something carefully defined by the government. Becoming an American taught me something far more profound: we are born free. Liberty is our birthright. The Constitution did not give us that birthright — it recognizes it and establishes a government whose powers are limited so that liberty may endure.

Yet liberty is more than a birthright. It comes with a solemn civic responsibility. As a naturalized American citizen, I swore an oath to honor and defend it. That responsibility belongs to all of us: not only to preserve liberty for ourselves, but to pass it intact to the Americans who will one day inherit it.

Westwood Square shooter was acting in self-defense, HPD says

HATTIESBURG, Miss. (WDAM) – No charges are being filed at this time following an overnight shooting that left one injured. The incident occurred in the Westwood Square shopping complex, near the Walk-On’s Sports Bistreaux parking lot.

Hattiesburg police responded to a report of shots fired around 9:56 p.m. on Tuesday. Officers confirmed the shooting using on-site evidence.

According to HPD, a person suffering from a non-life-threatening gunshot wound arrived at a local hospital shortly after the shooting.

Officers spoke with an individual who remained at the scene, who admitted to firing the shots after being assaulted during an altercation.

HPD said the person stayed on the scene and cooperated with investigators.

At this stage of the investigation, detectives believe that the shooter was acting in self-defense. No charges have been filed, but the investigation remains ongoing.