Louisiana Voice

We’re number one.

For 28 straight years.

Nick Saban can’t make that claim about Alabama.

Even more alarming: for an incredible 28 straight years, Louisiana leads the country in STATEWIDE murder rates.

Twenty. Eight. Straight. Years.

Thanks in large part to the state’s three largest cities: New Orleans, Baton Rouge and SHREVEPORT.

Because of the somewhat dated data, this might seem to be a non-story.

On the other hand, unless the trend has reversed itself dramatically, the findings remain dishearteningly and disturbingly relevant.

And so far, there seems to be no indication of any such reversal.

For the years 2015-2016, New Orleans had the highest per capita firearm homicide rate in the nation—four times the national rate and twice those of Chicago and Detroit, the so-called murder capitals of America.

Figures published by 24/7 Wall St., an independent research company that publishes some 30 reports daily, shows that New Orleans had 404 firearm homicides, a rate of 16.6 per 100,000 population. The national rate was 4.4 per 100,000 while Detroit and Chicago had firearm homicide rates of 8.2 and 8.1 per 100,000 population, respectively.

You can see the entire report HERE.

Even more disturbing, however, and not addressed by 24/7 Wall St. because of its smaller size, were the figures for BATON ROUGE, which had 62 firearm homicides in 2016, a rate of 32 per 100,000. But in 2017, that figure skyrocketed to 106 firearm killings for a rate of 46 per 100,000 population.

And already in 2018, there have been 73 firearm-related homicides in Baton Rouge and authorities seem powerless to stem the tide of firearm violence.

There are periodic Take Back the Neighborhood and Take Back the Night rallies and elected officials and law enforcement personnel make their token appearances, but those displays do little to bring peace to the neighborhoods jarred by what must seem like nightly outbursts of violence.

Rallies, political posturing and lip service just doesn’t seem to be cutting it.

They work about as well as the canned condolences uttered by all those elected officials who take time out of their busy campaign fund-raising schedules to offer TAPs (thoughts and prayers).