Year after year, we hear about shootings and murders in places with some of the strictest gun laws in the country.

It’s very sad.

One only has to look at the numbers to see how sad it really is. The number of mass shootings on the Fourth of July weekend topped any other weekend this year in cities with the strictest gun laws.

Citing the Gun Violence Archive, CNN reported there were at least 150 deaths from more than 400 incidents of gun violence during the Fourth of July weekend. In Chicago, 14 people were killed.

In New York, gun violence has spiked almost 40% this year when compared to 2020. There have been 767 shootings and 885 victims in 2021.

In too many of these shootings, babies, teenagers or innocent bystanders are wounded or killed because of the criminals’ actions.

In New York’s Times Square, a tourist was wounded when he was hit by an errant bullet after a fight allegedly erupted between street vendors. A 15-year-old boy was shot twice in Chicago before the Fourth of July weekend but is expected to recover, authorities said.

Every time the so-called leaders of these cities and states are asked about the high number of shootings, they call for more gun control. That seems to be the liberal solution for mass shootings and deaths in their cities and states.

What they have to know deep down but will never admit publicly is that criminals could care less about gun laws, which is why they are, in fact, criminals. The criminals are going to get illegal guns in a drug house, an alley or some other illegal way.

Stricter gun control, which disproportionately impacts law-abiding citizens, won’t solve these senseless shootings and murders. Real leadership could help.

Rather than that, we hear calls to defund the police and for more gun control in cities where the crime and murder rates are highest.

Chicago Mayor Lori Lightfoot is totally out of touch about crime in her city and recently said, “Crime is not out of control in our city. In fact, crime is on the decline.” She reminds us of Mohammed Saeed al-Sahhaf – aka Baghdad Bob – who served as then-Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s spokesman and claimed Iraq was winning the 2003 Gulf War even as U.S. forces were taking over Baghdad.

In this summer of violence, most of the recent shootings in these American cities have been Black-on-Black crimes. Why isn’t Black Lives Matters trying to help reduce these shootings? Where are civil rights activists Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton as this mayhem continues?

Some Black lives apparently matter much more than others.

We believe a major cause of the spikes in murders in U.S. cities is the defund the police movement. Murders and other violent crimes certainly seem to increase after these misguided efforts.

In Minneapolis between Dec. 11, 2020, and March 28 of this year, murders rose 46% compared to the same time period a year earlier. There have been 49% more homicides since a budget cut to the police department in July 2020 – 58 murders between July 22, 2020, and March 28, compared to the 39 reported year-over-year.

Total violent crime in Minneapolis between July 22, 2020, and March 28 was up 22% year-over-year – 3,692 this year compared to the 3,025 last year, Minneapolis police statistics show.

In Portland, Ore., records show that murders more than tripled year-over-year.

Police statistics from July 2020, when that city made budget cuts, and this past February – the most recent data available – showed homicides skyrocketed 270.6% compared to the same time a year earlier.

There were 63 homicides reported from July 2020 through February 2021 but only 17 recorded from July 2019 through February 2020, police records show.

In the first two months of 2021, Portland reported 17 murders – a 1,600% increase from the single murder reported during the first two months of 2020, Portland police statistics show.

The past year, 2020, was the deadliest in Portland in more than a quarter-century. City commissioners there voted last summer to cut nearly $16 million from the police budget in response to concerns about use of force and racial injustice.

New York City murders were up 11.8% year-to-date as of March 21, with 76 reported this year compared to the 68 from 2020, according to NYPD. The number of shootings rose 40.1% in 2021, with 220 reported as of March 21 compared to the 157 recorded shootings during the same time last year.

Meanwhile, the number of shooting victims during that time period jumped 39%, from 177 in 2020 to 246 in 2021.

In Los Angeles, the LAPD reported a 38% increase in murders in 2020 even as coronavirus mandates were meant to kept residents indoors. And for 2021, murders were up 28.3% as of March 13, with 77 killings reported this year to date compared to the 60 reported during the same time in 2020. The number of shooting victims nearly doubled, from 157 reported through March 13, 2020, compared to this year’s 303.

These examples show what happens when you have reckless leaders who defund police departments in their cities. By trashing and defunding the police, they are motivating police to seek other professions. That means fewer police officers on the street to help reduce these shootings, and it sends a message to criminals that they are less likely to be caught.

The defund the police message is also coming out of the halls of Congress from its more radical members. Some who protest loudest are protected by armed security every day of the year.

It’s the height of hypocrisy.

The rhetoric and actions coming from the White House isn’t doing anything to help these shooting spikes. Vice President Kamala Harris’ staff created a fund to bail anarchist rioters and ANTIFA members out of jail last year when she was a U.S. senator and vice presidential candidate. President Joe Biden hasn’t said he is for defunding police, but he could certainly be more vocal in supporting our police officers.

We do know this about Biden. When all the rioting, anarchy and disrespecting our law enforcement was occurring last summer and fall, he was hunkered down in his basement and was tardy in denouncing the violence, arson and looting.

This could tell you how he might truly feel about our brave law enforcement officers.

Liberals often like to make fun of flyover country, which is predominately pro-gun states. Thats’s fine. Kentucky’s a flyover state, as is most of the South and Midwest, but our murder rates are a lot lower and our citizens are a lot safer because our Second Amendment rights are respected and we have leaders who respect our police officers and would never want to defund them.

These Democratic “leaders” in these crime-infested cities with high homicide rates would be wise to come and visit flyover country and perhaps take a cue on how we do things to keep our shooting incidents and homicides lower than theirs.

U.S. Sen. Joe Manchin, D-W.Va., had an observation this year that perhaps the radicals should ponder: “Defund the police, my butt.”