Washington, DC, Records Highest Number of Murders Since 1997 Despite Stringent Gun Control

Washington, DC, recorded in 2023 the highest annual number of homicides the city has witnessed since 1997 despite stringent gun control.

According to the Washington Post, 274 people were killed in the city in 2023.

D.C. saw a murder rate of 40 per 100,000 residents, making it “deadlier than 55 of the country’s 60 most populous cities, behind only New Orleans, Cleveland, Baltimore and Memphis.”

Washington, DC, New Orleans, Cleveland, Baltimore, and Memphis are all Democrat-run cities.

The Post noted that D.C.’s surging homicides got the attention of the United States Congress and other federal officials who “questioned whether D.C. leaders were equipped to prevent the District from regressing to the social dysfunction and near municipal collapse of the late 20th century, when the city, overwhelmed by crack-fueled bloodshed, became known as America’s murder capital.”

A mid-December update from the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department made clear that 2023 was going to end with far more homicides than the city witnessed in 2022.

The update showed there were 259 homicides in D.C. from January 1, 2023, to December 15, 2023, versus 194 homicides from January 1, 2022, to December 15, 2022.

Over 90 percent of the homicides committed from January 1, 2023, through December 27, 2023, were firearm-related, although D.C. has some of the most stringent gun controls in the country. Those controls include limits of the number of guns a law-abiding citizen can purchase, firearm registration requirements, universal background checks, a red flag law, a “high capacity” magazine ban, and more.

AWR Hawkins is an award-winning Second Amendment columnist for Breitbart News and the writer/curator of Down Range with AWR Hawkins, a weekly newsletter focused on all things Second Amendment, also for Breitbart News. He is the political analyst for Armed American Radio and a Turning Point USA Ambassador. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal in 2010, a speaker at the 2023 Western Conservative Summit, and he holds a Ph.D. in Military History, with a focus on the Vietnam War (brown water navy), U.S. Navy since Inception, the Civil War, and Early Modern Europe. Follow him on Instagram: @awr_hawkins. You can sign up to get Down Range at breitbart.com/downrange. Reach him directly at awrhawkins@breitbart.com.