Louisiana Republican Sen. John Kennedy made a complete fool of his himself today during a Senate hearing on the causes of gun-related crime when he attempted to suggest that the city of Chicago had become a “shooting gallery.
Kennedy was questioning Dr. Megan Ranney of the Yale School of Public Health when he suggested that crime isn’t rising in Chicago as a result of law-abiding residents carrying guns, but rather is because liberal prosecutors are letting dangerous felons run free.
That led Ranney to remind the senator that his home state of Louisiana could also be called a “shooting gallery.”
“Mississippi, Louisiana, and Missouri actually have higher firearm death rates.”
Ranney is absolutely right. Louisiana has one of the highest murder rates in the United States, with 21.3 homicides per 100,000 people in 2021, according to figures from the National Center for Health Statistics. The only state with a higher rate is next door in Mississippi, which has 23.7 homicides per 100,000 people.
Despite Ranney’s facts, Kennedy asked, “What about Chicago?”
Ranney: “I don’t live in Chicago,” she replied. “It’s not my primary area of research.”
She added that crime in cities such as Chicago is likely caused by “easy access to firearms” and “lack of great education.”
