With homicides on the rise, Democrats are blaming gun violence while Republicans take aim at a crime wave they argue has been unleashed by defunding or disrespecting the police in liberal cities.
New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo declared the nation’s first state gun violence emergency, illustrating his party’s approach to the violence sweeping large parts of the country. “We went from one epidemic to another epidemic. We went from COVID to the epidemic of gun violence,” he said. “More people are dying of gun violence than of COVID.”
Republicans are placing the blame elsewhere. “Democrat-run cities are defunding police departments all across the country RIGHT NOW, but instead of condemning these cities, the Biden administration is falsely claiming Republicans are for defunding the police,” said Republican National Committee Rapid Response Director Tommy Pigott.
This is gearing up to be a major issue in next year’s midterm elections, in which Democrats are defending small majorities in both houses of Congress. Democratic operatives believe urban crime, and the identification of the most liberal candidates with defunding the police, hurt them at the ballot box last year.
Gun control is one way Democrats plan to fight back, putting Republicans on the defensive about what they describe as “common-sense gun reforms.” President Joe Biden has called for a crackdown on “ghost guns” and the reinstatement of the assault weapons ban, which he helped pass as part of the now-controversial 1994 crime bill during his Senate tenure but which has since lapsed.
“It’s hard to point to any one thing and say it is the reason for rising crime rates,” said Randy Petersen, senior researcher on policing at the Texas Public Policy Foundation. “But you could point to everything that is going on, depending on your political viewpoint, and say, ‘That’s the reason.'”
Cuomo’s gun-centric strategy may not protect Democrats at the ballot box, at least outside of blue states and districts. While New York City’s Democratic mayoral nominee Eric Adams asked what took so long to declare a gun emergency, the former police officer won the primary largely on the strength of his anti-crime, anti-defund message. It was widely seen as another example of Hispanic and black voters rejecting defund the police.
Violent crime helped put Republicans in New York City’s mayorship under Rudy Giuliani in 1993, continuing through then-GOPer Michael Bloomberg.
Even gun control proposals that poll well nationally, such as tighter background checks, have in the past done more to motivate gun owners to turn out in the midterm elections. This was the case after the assault weapons ban passed and Republicans picked up 52 House seats and eight Senate seats in 1994.
There may also be some skepticism among liberal voters that narrow Democratic majorities in Washington can actually enact significant gun control, which has failed even after high-profile school shootings have raised concerns among suburban voters.
The combination of gun owners who are opposed to new laws and liberals who are uncertain anything will be done has contributed to Biden having some of his lowest approval ratings on guns.
But the framing of the homicide spike as crime versus gun violence, with the latter sometimes treated as a public health issue, is likely to persist past the midterm elections.
Biden has tried to distance the Democratic Party from defunding the police, and Vice President Kamala Harris has a reputation as a tough prosecutor earlier in her political career. But he has voiced support for the reallocation of resources from law enforcement budgets at the local level in some cases, which some activists consider a version of their reform strategy. And the defund label still stuck on Democrats in some down-ballot races.
The Biden administration has tried to turn this issue around on Republicans, although fact-checkers have cried foul.
“When we were in Congress last year trying to pass … an emergency relief plan for cities that were cash-strapped and laying off police and firefighters, it was the Republicans who objected to it,” Biden senior adviser Cedric Richmond told Fox News. “And in fact, they didn’t get funding until the ‘American Rescue Plan,’ which, our plan allowed state and local governments to replenish their police departments and do the other things that are needed. So look, Republicans are very good at staying on talking points of who says ‘defund the police,’ but the truth is, they defunded the police.”
“That was voted into law by Democrats just a couple of months ago,” White House press secretary Jen Psaki said of the $1.9 trillion spending bill Biden signed. “Some might say that the other party was for defunding the police; I’ll let others say that, but that’s a piece.”
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But the White House and Democrats have preferred to keep the focus on guns as Republicans contend police morale has hit an all-time low in some Democratic-dominated cities.
“A big driver of the rise in crime is gun violence — a personal passion of [Biden’s] for decades,” Psaki told reporters at a White House press briefing on Thursday.
